


The Unseen Army

by meupclose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Death, Eventual Smut, Gen, Murder, POV Draco Malfoy, Slow Burn, Torture, Violence, War, secrets and lies, some happy things but not really, this will be a dark war fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-28 17:14:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2740511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meupclose/pseuds/meupclose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is not us to fear my dear; for we are the assassins built for a revolution within the very frame work of evil. We are perfect in our design, not viewed as a threat when they only see kids. Our families are held captive by him and gladly stand to shield us from his line of sight. This has been years in the making, and understand that when it all comes down to the final battle it will not be us that become the heroes. No. We will get Harry Potter there, and take the fall for our crimes no matter the truth of motive. Believe me love, this is the price of peace. I will be successful in my plans, in my leadership. I will help in the downfall of Voldemort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello; This will be a relatively dark themed fic. Dramione is the main ship here though there are many that will be fluid in the story. It will remain somewhat close to canon from the view of Harry Potter in the books, as this story is from Draco's point of view only and he will have limited knowledge of what is happening to Harry. Over all- this is an obvious AU, though strived for in character writing, a few changes will have to happen to keep with my themes. Be warned and enjoy it! It will unfold at a steady pace, and some chapters will start with drabbles of FB moments to fill you in on past events dealing without how Draco became who he is. The story actually starts in 5th Year. -- Cheers! Cassie

_Fourth Year_

Black nails, stained with a permanent rankness of Azkaban carted pointedly down the bridge of his nose, but he dared not to move when his Aunt slid the icy, and dirty fingers to tuck under his jaw. The movements drew an impression against his skin in fierce white lines even against pale skin. It burned red from the pressure, her grip tightening under his chin to lift it higher to force his stare straight up into the crazed eyes of Bellatrix Lestrange.

"You think Severus can teach you better? HA!"

Draco swallowed thickly, grey hues blown near black from fright as his father stood in the doorway just watching her do this to him. He had led him to this room with out a seeming care, and the thought that his father took pride from the techniques of his mother’s sister over Severus made Draco swell of disappointment from the coward his dad was becoming. Severus’ eyes he did meet. The man he trusted more than anyone in his family- even his own mother who chose to watch on as well. What they didn’t know was that Severus had been teaching him Occumancy since third year. That he was prepared for this didn’t make it any less frightening.

Draco didn’t dare look away from the man, the young boy’s chest heaving slightly as a panic attack threatened to spiral from the pits of his stomach and up into a heaving sickness. His uncle looked worried, and he found his eyes swelling with tears before he could gather his whits about him. He didn’t want her inside his head.

Bellatrix slapped him across the face. The noise near deafening in the cigar room, only hosting the outcry of noise from his mother as the teenager swallowed down his own. 

"Quite Cissy! Out of all those boys Draco here will be the best! Our Dark Lord will only see greatness out of him!" Bellatrix turned to her sister with a crazed expression while her staggering steps were accusatory with further lifting of those nasty fingers to point inches from her face. _"You coddled him you did! How could you sister? But it’s ok- Ill toughen him up. After all it is under His orders I do so. Trust me Cissy, he can handle it."_

Draco swallowed the words caught on his tongue that he wasn’t, because deep down he knew he was. His pale eyes remanded still on Severus, pleading silently for him to take up the training instead of her. He needed him, wanted to learn, and not under his Aunt who was a horrid teacher. At those thoughts her fingers gripped under his jaw again, and he winced, fists drawing against the intricate wooden chair when she forced his gaze back up to her. She drew her hand back to smack him across his cheek again. The boy gritted his teeth through it while she held his chin with a bruising grasp to turn it back to face her. 

_Legilimens!_

Her nasty shrill of a voice took over his every thought and Draco was submerged with a running playback of his day’s activities. He screamed externally from the forceful invasion, but internally he was painting the world into a park just outside of Diagon Alley. It was a muggle one, with happy children playing and laughing with their parents who pushed them on the swings. Bellatrix sneered at the visual while she shoved it away to harshly forcing the break in connection that had Draco slumping forward in the chair and Bellatrix falling back in five steps to glare at the boy. A drop of blood gathered in the concave of his nostril and fell from his nose to stain the front of his shirt.

"This is enough!"

That was his mother again. But Draco waved her knowing steps, sniffing with the back of his hand pressed against his nose to lift his heavy head back to his Aunt who looked beyond angry at what she saw. It gave him the fuel he needed to beat her mental games, and it formed a small smirk to lift just in the corner of his lips. His mother fell back in her own step with a horrid expression at the challenging stare down Draco was having with Bellatrix. But his Aunt loved it. Soaked it in like the finest wines and walked swiftly forward from where she had staggered back to press her wand at his temple. Growling a hair from his face, nasty breath inhaled by the boy to cling to his lungs. 

"Do you want me to out best you Aunt—-" he started to say but she gripped under his jaw again with a shrill of  _Legilimens!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Fifth Year- Current**

Diary Entry  
  
He’s always there. Lurking. Hiding between the folds of my subconscious. Whispering things to make my toes curl, or my skin to break out in a sweat so awful it catches the cold of the dungeons until I feel like I am being frozen alive.

Waiting for me to scream.  
He always wants me to scream.

I won’t give him the benefit.  
I won’t give him the pleasure.  
I won’t give him the show.

……I screamed last night. It came out so raw that when it choked off I hadn’t realized it was because my own hands were around my throat. Goyle tore my hands away, beady eyes so wide in fright that it instantly hushed all in our room who awoken.

They are loyal to me. At least I think so. But the bruises along my skin are blossomed purple already and it’s barely morning. I will need a potion to conceal them until I can convince Severus to rid them from my body.

 

* * *

It smelled awful in the main hall. A  _sweet_  sickening to the environment that spoke of the coming magic that would summon forth more desserts than the fat and disgusting Gryffindor’s could ever hope to devour. It made him sick. Or it was the lingering effects of the potion he had taken earlier that day, Draco wasn’t sure. But quick to judge. 

A sharp and piercing stare cut through the crowd upon hearing Harry Potter’s laugh. It brought goosebumps to his covered flesh. The thick wool cloak not warm enough even standing in the doorway of the crowded hall of people. How ever out of everyone that  _one_  noise could manage to pierce the congested veil of laughter to reach his ears. Talk of hundreds of students continued to confuse him into an odd distant haze. But no such answer to that confusion ever marked the sneer already planted on his face, nor the icy glare that penetrated through the student body to land on warm chocolate brown that every time actually threatened to melt the ice so frozen around his heart.

He couldn’t stand such a sight. Mudblood. Beautiful. Smart. Every terrible spoken word, whispered like demonic smoke between his ears by his father for years to retain focus on what was worthless, and what they stood for oozed like tar through his veins no matter how it has changed. His body felt heavy as stone unable to move for fear he would crumble apart to cause screams of confusion as too how a Malfoy could show such emotion.  _Show such weakness._ As falling in love with something when there was war happening just outside those walls was enough to send him into an angry lashing.

He took a solitary, deeper breath. Alone in a doorway leading to a room filled with happiness, and all that he felt was disdain. They knew not of the trials that lied ahead. What terrible things were coming. 

_Why was he still looking at Granger?_

Oh how here eyes sparked with a wrinkle to her forehead with not understanding his cold stare. He held it defiantly wanting to capture the moment when she would look away, or reach over to press a warm palm into the Weasley who was stuffing his face full. But neither moved in that minute of strange connection, the Malfoy allowing his sneer to lessen enough to cinch his stomach in frustrated pains. She wasn't worth the risk, nor the lies. With a drop of his gaze he decided eating among the dammed wasn’t on his wanted list, and he set off to potions early.

The halls were quiet once he left the noise of the great hall, and Draco's leather soles shoes became a metronome of sound against the old aged stones of the passageway. His wand was out, always on his guard though kept it up his sleeve as to not draw alarm. A chilled hand brushed the bruises to his neck hidden under his scarf, and turtleneck sweater. Voldemort in his dreams was concerning, even more that he suspected Harry might be out for attack soon as well. The leader was ruthless with entering peoples minds when he wanted too, but Draco's was easier since he took the mark. The black stain of the nasty tattoo burned often as a leech sucking away at his soul. No matter his role they all thought he had, the boy was in charge of something far greater than even The Order could hope in contributing too. 

When he entered the room his uncle was there setting up the board with a scratch of caulk, and the boy stood taller, clearing his throat to gain his attention. 

"Draco," Severus' drawn voice carried through the empty classroom and lured him to take steps into the space enough to be standing by his side at the front of the room. 

"Severus plea—" A hand swiped out, gripping around the knobby bone of his wrist to gain his full attention by way of bright, wide crystal blue eyes. The sudden tightened grip to his wand was in instant retaliation, knuckles blown white while he regained a normal beating of his heart. Calm was granted only by the look shared between them that released the swell of want to lash out and protect himself. It was instinctual. And he felt suddenly ashamed to show it in front of Severus. He loved his uncle deeply. It was little known other than that he was a favorite because of his placement in Slytherin by all class mates, but Severus was his God Father. The only person in this entire school who knew what actually happened at home, and more what he was the leader of on top of all his duties.

 _"_ Let me see it,"his mentor said between them, releasing the hold on his arm to allow his now shaking fingers to pull down the edge of his collar, and remove the green and silver scarf in one quick pull before tossing the article on his seat. Severus hummed in his observation, cold, icy fingers touching gently over the discolored skin that should have made him wince, but the pain was nothing to what he’s been through before, and they both knew it.

"I just need it hidden for today, Ill work on the potion myself if you can give me your better notes on it…" He watched the potions master moved away to rummage through his stores. The black snap of his cloak a more comforting sound to the young boy than anyone understood. With a released sigh, he pulled up his collar, paled hands moving swiftly to smooth down his vest and shirt to something perfect- a Malfoy. The seat he selected was unfortunately near the door, the noise of the coming people way in the distance that gave him a thankful moment of peace to himself. The seat wasn’t his usual but today it served to allow him an early escape after class to get to his free period. But just when he thought his day couldn’t collide to create a moment of complete euphoria on top of the dark, swirling thoughts of the letter waiting for him in the owlry- Granger touched him.

Thousands of thoughts simultaneously fired rapidly in such a fierce concession that he staggered back, hands instantly steadying the small of her back so she wouldn’t tumble down with her books. He released a growl. Pitted in the hallowed cave of his underbelly that snapped back his reality of it all just as a series of people’s voices carried down the hall. It was a congestion waiting to happen and before he could mutter one fucking word the door was filled with three other people awaiting the ending to their scene.  _Why must they expect this from me?_

"Granger—" he bit out, looking stoic in his expression to glare down the sharp line of his nose. "Watch it!" he hissed loudly, nudging her shoulder before shifting his body to turn and sit down in his seat just as Severus left his stores room, eyes only on his. 

_Miss Granger do let your classmates in…10 points from Gryffindor for lack of understanding how doors work._

"But professor he..." Hermoine glared something fierce at him, but he held it with a sparked hint of mischief that the girl just didn't get. "Sorry Professor..." came her response and left him dry with a strong grip to the Weasley's arm that looked like he might actually get physical with him. That would have been an interesting sight. Even more with his training in muggle fighting that would have the boy on his back with a broken nose in seconds before his wand was drawn and pressed into the artery of his neck. 

Draco chuckled, back turned to everyone as they made their way to their seats. The chill of his palm against his neck the only proof of the increased heart rate that Granger brought out of him no matter his dark thoughts. How she smelled of honey, and the softness of her hair that brushed his cheek made him want to curl a finger around it. It was cruel how perfect she was—and how he’d wished he could be the gentlemen his mother brought up in him to be and help her out. His eyes sought out hers, holding a quiet intensity that to him was normal, but to others would allow them to see the honest stormy brew of emotions he kept behind those eyes. He removed his hand, not listening to his heart deceive him anymore, and finally managed to remove his eyes from Granger to pay attention to class.


	3. Chapter 3

**Fourth Year**

_Draco!_  

Blaise’s voice carried easily over the determined steps of the older boy. He sighed at being seen up this early, a deep frustration that came out in a low growl in his throat and sudden stop to his forward progression. Blonde hair fell into his eyes, a soft reddened bruise under having developed from his sleepless nights through the entire year. The Malfoy spun around to glare at his friend. A weariness carried heavily upon his shoulders that turned around to face him with a fierce. “What?!”

The light skinned boy’s features morphed into a matching sneer at the anger behind the word, but just as quickly as they shared such an intense stare down it faded into a honest smile that brought out the youthfulness that they each carried under layers of forced maturity.

"It’s happening— you know they will be successful," Blaise said quietly, moving them both to a more private corner of the hall when a group of students walked by. Draco glared at them and both girls dropped their eyes towards the ground as to not look at the boys.

"You think I wouldn't know the second I am home from school? I heard Pettigrew- that rat! He is so smug of his choice to use his hand in the spell…I swear Blaise I almost slit open his throat while he resided at the manor, if only it would stop this from happening, but we both know it wouldn’t. Another follower is always there to replace these idiots, " he hissed in proof to his sorting, running a chilled palm down his face. Draco released a sigh, it was laced with the exhaustion that went even beyond not sleeping, that what was happening at the Tri-Wizard Tournament was something his Father was scared of verses what everyone in the entire world saw. Blaise’s family understood well what this meant for all the turn coats. Voldemort would know their disloyalty no matter the claims that spewed from their families mouths that they were loyal the entire time, all they could hope was that they could keep their kids out of the light so they could prepare and fight back.

"My Father is worried. I see him pacing in his office, Blaise...he might kill us all. You know what they all did, what choices my father made, and even yours. Pansy’s, Goyle’s, even Crabbe’s mom continued living happily without the rein of  _him_  looming over their shoulders with expectations that make no sense. Even more so to us Pure Bloods. Like he understands what we are—” Blaise’s eyes grew the more he ranted, and Draco caught the flicker of muscle in his hand in want to cover his mouth for his own safety.

"Listen Blaise- I’ll play along, but I will not be a puppet in this. He’s coming back. Our families will make it so no matter what they think or feel they are stuck- but that doesn’t mean **we** can’t fight back. I am planning things, Harry is the answer in all this. I don’t know how- but he is. We have to watch out for him if we can and be sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, and catch on that we are helping him and his group of strange friends." Draco released another long sigh, Blaise grasping his shoulder in understanding to what they were agreeing too. His friends will be loyal to him.

"We follow your lead Draco, just see if Snape can get us training on occlumency in the evening’s when he does rounds. We will need it, he’s our only hope to survive a face to face with —you know who." Draco nodded, and shook his friend’s hand tightly before another gaggle of girls walked by waving their way. He retained a level of a confident smirk in reply.

"I’ve got this Blaise. I won’t let anything happen to us. No matter how terrible it all ends up, we have to keep our plans hidden. No falling in love with Gryffindor’s—" he grinned at Blaise’s blush over what Draco knew was a harbored crush on Ginny. "Ill be seeing you—" he finished, eyes just making out the back of a bushy, haired girl that just skipped his heart a solid beat.  _No falling in love with Gryffindor’s Draco Malfoy._

* * *

**Fifth Year**

That  _bitch._  How dare her.

Drace was fuming but in multiple, deeper rooted ways that made him want to lash out and smack her, twist his fingers in her soft hair and scream in her face. Or worse—press her up against the table and fuck her until she was screaming herself. Puberty at sixteen. It was his two extremes, love and hate boiling down to a line of lust, and power that shaped a Malfoy into what they all saw. He scooped the stupid potion up, and walked his vile over to Professor Snape, handing it to him as the older man gave him the potion for his bruises with slight of hand.

"Professor, I am required to the owlry after class. Since I am finished—" he could actually feel her eyes on him and it sent his gaze a lurking right at Granger, and to see her eyes light up in happiness for some how thinking she needed to help him. He needed no help from a mudblood. He didn’t need help from anyone! Pride was a fickle thing. Layered and twisted with acts of violence when it felt threatened even if they did- maybe..needed that hair. His neck ached from the turn back and glared at the vile that would only hide the effects. Severus said he could rid them completely in seconds but Draco needed to learn how himself, he wasn’t coming crawling back to his uncle every single time he choked himself— not that it would happen again. But he had enough pain wroth on his body that he really should learn better healing spells. Maybe being a Doctor wasn’t the worse desires he’s ever had.

"Sir, Granger cheated with my potion. Stuck one of her disgusting hairs right into my cauldron she did," it wasn't a total lie, he had placed the last ingredient in never being one to not fail at potions while at Hogwarts. The potion had indeed needed one of her hairs but he would have preferred to walk across the room and yank it from her pretty head. But he wanted- _needed_  her put down from that high she created for herself. That he could still feel between them like she had helped him and would then allow them a truce of sorts. He wasn't placed in Slytherin for being fair. There was no room for love in war. “I can guarantee my potion would have ended correct but I find it unfair I couldn’t discover the last ingredient without a pompous Gryffindor sticking her nose into my business while I attempt to learn. Your decision on if my potion is accepted should correlate with hers, Sir. May I be excused from the class?”

Severus’ black eyes bored through the class from his desk to land squarely Hermione but Draco never turned back to look at her. Couldn’t really. He hoped Severus failed her today, even if that included him as well.

"Detention for the both of you tonight," Severus delivered perfectly, and Draco eyed his mentor in understanding, knowing to arrive early so he could read the letter from his father in peace. Not that it mattered anymore…nothing fucking mattered anymore with his family unless he did something about it. He mouthed thank you to Severus before turning to shoot a wide, grin to Granger whose face was dotted in red. 

Steps lingered past her table, walking behind her allowed her scent to fill his senses, and he hated how distracting it was. He slammed his hands on either side of her, grinning like he had won some kind of prize until he almost pressed his entire back against her spine. Curling forward so close that his cheek brushed the smoothness of hers. Breath warm, hot even coming from someone so  _cold_  as him.

"Don’t pull that shit with me ever again. I do not need your help— ever Granger. Don’t smile at me, even if its with your eyes. I see what you do to people, and I will—" His threat was cut short with Snape clearing his throat, unaware of the quiet in the room. He rose with a smug exterior in place, and strode to his desk to retrieve his things just as the bell rang for class to be over. And with a final glance over his shoulder, offering only a blank expression as the thoughts of his next destination and needs filled his head. He walked right out the door and for the owlry.

-

The letter was filled with exactly what he expected, and Draco had it tucked in his inside pocket of his cloak to allow the thoughts fade away a bit before dinner. The Malfoy's were working on setting up a capture for Harry, and Draco wouldn't allow it to happen. It made him sick in a way, but with Umbridge walking through the halls with bright pink dresses, accompanied with lack of actual defense against the dark arts. It left the boy little room to  _not_ retaliate even in school from the system. If he thought going against voldemort as a turn coat was frightening, having to hide all their dealings also in school like they were living normal lives was having a great toll on him. 

"I am going to kill him," Draco said around a grit of teeth and pop of his sharp lined jaw from the intense clenching at needing to keep his voice quiet. Blaise nodded his head, knowing the feeling well. Their lean bodies folded against a statue on the fourth floor corridor, the Slytherin’s twirling their wands already imagining the spells they would do on the fool.

"How frightened would he be if I came to him in the night, held a dagger to his throat while I forced him to drink a potion that would make it feel as if his skin was falling off—

"We don’t need a body on our hands Draco—though if he doesn’t stop we can always scare him a bit if you want."

Blaise suggested this seriously, interrupting Draco only to stop that violent forward thinking from the boy. His friend never took anything Draco said for play or jest, so if he was having such desired thoughts, they were real ones. The pair were on business right now, watching the crowds. Gathering information for Voldemort on the children of Hogwarts, and what exactly the ministry was doing here. Draco liked the cover the work gave them to the real mission he was instilling in his fellow classmates.

"Umbridge will be a problem," he said casually, eyes not leaving the tall Gryffindor who had chased Hermione into the girls bathroom again. His fists curled around his wand. "She is here for her own agenda, and is no ally to us. But that doesn’t mean she needs to know that. They just don’t get it do they…"

Blaise chuckled, shifting more into the shadows of the statue to look at Draco’s profile. 

"No, but they also don’t deal with what we deal with. None of those kids wake up to the hell we see, they don’t know what ‘he’ makes our families do. The death we see, or hear about. The screams. They only have school to worry about Draco— and it’s how it’s meant to be. You will be the difference in this, it’s why we follow you. Don’t let your dark desires cloud that. And will you stop looking at Cormac…” 

Blaise shoved him lightly, and Draco’s gaze finally left the insufferable man to form a smile around his lips at his friend.

"Yeah I know all this, alright, no killing that particular Lion today, but…" he looked over to the man who wanted to be Keeper and somehow lost to Ronald. The thought brought a strange shiver to his body thinking about Ron, not understanding why such a pure blooded warlock didn’t see what the others were going through. Almost wishing the Weasley’s would make a stand with them in all this, and maybe he will eventually. Draco had been considering working with the Twins as their gadgets and toys were objects that could come to great benefit to him. But adding Gryfindors to the secrets of their Unseen Army was a risky addiction, and something the young leader wasn't ready for.

"Alarte ascendare," Draco said with a point of his wand at the man’s feet watching with glee as the spell shot perfectly through the opened space in the crowd and sent Cormac flying through the air and into a knight display of armor.

Blaise had to cover his mouth to stop the barking laughter that threatened to leave him, and Draco chuckled darkly, but grinned beautifully to show his true age. “Come on Blaise, lets get to dinner. I have detention tonight with Granger—” Draco said with out a look back to see her leave the bathroom, though wondered if she ever noticed all the more or less  _terrible_ things he did to that boy who pursued something that wasn’t his to have. 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Fifth Year- Current**

The bane of his thoughts, desires. It was ridiculous. Shameful even. Though under it all his parents honestly wouldn’t care, none of the Pure Blood families cared anymore about blood, DNA, heritage, or lineage. They only cared about survival surrounded by the dammed who brought him back. The Malfoy’s cared only about family, and keeping each other safe above all else, and sadly that meant retaining a deeply rooted racism, and pompous superiority complex so perfected over the years that even the smartest of our year Hermione Granger couldn’t see through it.

It was upon her gazes that he gauged his image, used her anger and fury at his comments and sneers by way of knowing he was doing his job. It was all for her kind anyway in the end— what they would do to her once they have enough followers was frightening even to him.

Draco moved swiftly away from Granger, and Severus’ desk to walk over to a cauldron already bubbling on a large fire. He had an assortment of ingredients laid out around it that Severus was showing him were different from the school text books. The warlock wasn’t privy to the idea of her working out the reason for such a creation, but it had taken longer than he expected, much to Severus’ amusement that actually made him smile something genuine a hour earlier. It had hurt his face. The lifting of his lips in a genuine smile, marking his brow into a pinched expression to squint his eyes. It might have stood to be the first honest laugh that was birthed right after such show of emotion that he’s had all year. And it disgusted him it was so.

"No magic for detention," he said with a coy voice as he began chopping up black slugs into perfect horizontal lines, their black sludge oozing upon the table with an accompanied stench that threatened to make him gag. "I mean, if you have added to practice wandless cleaning spells Granger, this would be all done in matter of minutes. My mother can glare at a room and it’s clean in seconds— then again," he looked over his shoulder, pale hues electric, and mean.

"She is of pure blood, who would have thought cleaning spells beneath Hermione Granger. If you had known them we could just sit here, pretend neither exist, and you can go back to thinking people need your help when they don’t ask for it."

His voice had changed a bit after his insult, turning his back on her to focus on his work, finding it more important than anything that she was being forced to do such muggle cleaning which would require days. Not that he would help her one bit, he wouldn’t be in detention after today regardless if they finished. He had important business to attend to that required the cover of one, but he would be elsewhere. Sorry to her that she was his cover— at least he could keep her quiet the easiest. He assumed. Hermione huffed an annoying noise just then jarring his thoughts, but she made no move to voice a retaliation which was more disappointing than he realized.

The potion bubbled green from the added slugs, so Draco upped the heat while he concentrated on getting another ingredient juiced. He was put together tonight as always. Not a hair out of place, but there was an odd rawness over his features that spoke of his determination and art of what he understood in potions. Draco was obviously of higher status socially, but more always resonated around the blonde boy. What Herminone wouldn’t know is that it was because of the revolution he was leader of. The one that one day would work in hiding alongside Dumblebore’s Army without the Chosen One ever knowing. Assassins, spies, gifted with training on magics that the school could never hope to teach their children. Draco was becoming a weapon, a leader, and he would be the reason for many events coming to Voldemort’s collapse.

With little to no glance her way, he dotted his brow that had a collection of small beads of sweat from the heat, and took off his sweater vest in one movement leaving the tall boy only in his white shirt rolled up to his elbows. It stretched in perfect tailoring across his chest, lean muscles defined from quidditch rippled easily around the curves of his biceps, and ever growing into the man he would be. He drew quiet, keeping his back to her the entire time while he worked. Fine, beautiful script scratched loudly in the space with a black quill while he wrote out the list of order, and the final touches to the new potion he was creating to help rid the body of bruises in one dose versus many like he was being forced to take. Severus had an idea of how to design it, but Draco wanted to attempt the improved formula himself. If it worked as he hoped maybe he could use it as a base for other medical potions he could make in bulk without raising detection with needing so many health vile's from the nurses ward, or worse, being questioned by Umbridge. His fingers carted over the exposed bruises on his arms, and sneered lightly. Knowing they were from muggle fighting styles him and Blaise were practicing in the lower dungeons that required more need for such concealment.

It all served a higher purpose, everything he did served to keep his team in fit shape, both magically, and without it. Frantically squishing the beetles until their green blood was added to the potion as well finally brought his gaze looking over at Granger with that of a more rare smile than he meant to share before returning to ignore her. Yeah- this was all for them. For her. He could continue to be the bad guy forever if it kept people like her safe.

"If you know the spell Malfoy, can't you just do it already? Show me up, go ahead, prove to me how stupid I am," 

Her words grated his soul, nails to chalkboard painful to hear because it was of honest statements and by his design he would drop herself so low to speak them. He turned then, blonde strands clung to his forehead while he peered through them, glaring crystalline hues her way. She had suds everywhere from the cauldrons, and seemed to have made a bigger mess in the last few minutes than what was suppose to happen in the hour they were here. He lifted his fingers, holding her gaze so intensely that his breath halted because she was so remarkably beautiful even in such a catastrophic mess. 

He waved his hand, muttering words that wandlessly cleaned all the cauldrons, and left even herself perfectly clean. With a slide of leather sole to stone he turned back to his potion, not daring to mutter another word her way and continued to write his notes.

"Thank you," her voice spoke from his side, and he glanced up fro the proximity, "Draco what happened to your--"

His hand shot out, twisting and pinning her arm behind her back until her hair hovered a hair over the open flame. She cried out, tears turning to pattering steam while Draco glared into the orange flames consuming the bright blue of his eyes until he spun her around. Pressing close against her while releasing his hold, breaths hot against her throat before he peered into her tear-filled eyes.

"What. Bruises," he demanded, her head shaking side to side as he swallowed his anger. "They will be gone in a second," he growled out, pushing away from her body to scoop the potion into a vile. Smelling the scent coming from the now cooling mixture before handing it to her. "Drink it--" He demanded, gaze pointing to the bruised mark he had given her, but Hermione shook her head no handing it back to him, he sighed. 

"Fine," he said drinking the potion, the slide of a metallic taste filling his mouth before it heated his body like a furnace. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth penetrate his skin until the bruises melted away leaving clear flesh. Hermione's fingers touched his neck bravely,

"Did you design this? It's incredible,"

It took every ounce of control to not lash out at her, feeling her fingertips on his skin almost unbareable. "Take the potion Granger, and read a book. I have work to do--" His words growled rudely, but watched with a small fluttering fascination when she actually did take the potion into a vile. Small mouth blowing gently on it like it would explode if not handled with care. He watched quietly, almost selfishly while the glass met plush, pouty lips, and Draco licked his. Wishing to steal a kiss, just one that wouldn't mean anything. One he could play off or make her forget. But he swallowed thickly instead, the bitterness of the situation tasting fowl.

"You don't have to always be so aggressive--"

"You know NOTHING of what I need to be!" he screamed so loudly it echoed multiple times in the space. Hermione met his heated gaze in challenge and Draco might have falling a breath more in love with her. The cruelty of this situation not lost on him, but he refused to break. "Back off Granger, you worthless bitch. I will not tolerate listening to your stupid advice when you are so lost to whats around you. Go read, tomorrow I will not clean up the mess." With those final words the pair didn't talk anymore, and Draco didn't stop perfecting the potion even long after detention was over.    


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: blood;

**Summer**

"Draco? Shit--" The blonde boy keeled over, broom in hand colliding with the door step to Blaise's house. His friend stepped forward barely stopping Draco's head from connecting with stone, and hooked his arms under the limp form, dragging him with a shout for Pansy to grab his things and shut the damn door before someone saw. 

"Did he go out alone, god where is his partner?!" she nearly shrieked at the sight, her own skin paling at the amount of blood clung to his cloak. Blaise tore the object off before depositing Draco near the fire so he could see what he was doing. 

"Just grab water Pansy, and the potion kit I have hidden under my bed," he severed the shirt to get to the wounds, quickly revealing a blackening bruise along the right side from broken ribs, but it was the dagger still stuck into his side that had Blaise's breath catch and suddenly speed everything up. Wand work immediate in healing everything he could until he slid out the dagger and shoved a potion down Draco's throat to heal the internal damage. This was just how it was now. All of them came back hurt when assassinations or recon work didn't go as plan, and it happened more often than they liked because they were just kids. There was only so much training they would squeeze in a year, and they were trying. Snape knew how much they tried to be safe, the potions master had become a segregate to all the Slytherins who couldn't confide in their parents because of their involvement with Voldemort for risk of the entire operation falling apart. Severus was the only one who had the power to keep Voldemort out of his head, and was the only one they would count on when things got to bad. 

Draco coughed, sitting up quickly with a slew of slurs under his breath before collapsing back down. Pansy handed Draco a glass of water, and he gladly took it. 

"I am so sorry for coming here. It could have ruined everything," Draco said after finishing the water in one go. Blaise nodded because it had been extremely foolish, thank god their parents were at a Gala tonight. Pansy tucked a pillow under his head then smacked his shoulder harshly making Draco jump from the contact, but offer a wide smile in return. 

"Screw you--" she said under her breath but reached down and gave her friend a hug, "did you go solo tonight, we are always in teams for this very reason." She was chiding him, and he loved it. Needed it almost desperately because it was normal behavior for the pair of them. Draco palmed his face, hand holding the healed over dagger wound, and the bruised broken ribs that he would let heal on his own for now. 

"Recon gone bad, I didn't even see the guy. I had just been there, it wasn't planned just my mark showed up where I was and I followed," he winced to shift upward enough to place his head low on the cushion of a chair, cradling his upper body to he didn't jar any stinging pains. "I was under a disguise, my cover wasn't compromised in that way. Just I don't know. One second I was watching him, and the next I was tossed down the alleyway. It was a muggle fight, I wasn't mentally prepared for that since we were in Wizard London, but he hit me hard enough to remind me that I need to continue training. I managed a stun, and flew out of there. Didn't realize the dagger until I was mid-flight, couldn't go home then-- I should go--" 

He made to stand but Blaise shoved his shoulder down, "look my parents are the Gala, I am positive your parents are there as well. So just rest a second, we have a few hours. Let me get you clean clothes so you aren't all half naked in my living room." 

Draco chuckled, it felt good to make such a sound, and Pansy's expression to hearing the soft noise was noticeable. At least with them he could be himself. 

\---

**Current**

His quill scratched along aged parchment as fast as he could manage and still keep his beautiful script of handwriting. The library was quiet, and actually empty. It was his free period, and the weather had took a turn for a warmer fall day than anyone expected. Everyone was outside enjoying it, flying, and eating lunches with their friends before the winter chill caught up to swallow the season whole. And Draco was in the library-- he scowled, frantically finishing up his third essay due this week so he would be complete with all his homework. Steps interrupted his thoughts on the closing paragraph when he saw her, and how he stared. So obvious if she had just glanced up once from her hunt, the longing held in such intensity of his paled, crystalline hues. He was hopeless. Pansy made fun of him for it constantly, but she liked their match, secretly threatening to send her flowers and gifts with the initials DM just to mess with him. But it wasn't possible to have feelings for her. Well, it definitely was possible, but he felt it impossible to  _have_ them be shared. 

She must have felt his stare because she turned with a peer over her shoulder and glanced around the library. Draco finished his essay so she wouldn't know it was him causing that instinct to flare, well aware that it wasn't a rarity to see him in here after actually beating Hermione for a few months in fourth year for top of the class that he had found hilarious. She had been, well, amused.

"Do you have the book on the third Troll War?" she asked suddenly right by his side, but he barely flinched. Having heard her steps with prediction to when he would hear her voice. He finished his essay with a flourish, and leaned back in the wooden chair, gaze heavy on the morphed awe that suddenly struck her face. "Are you done all three essay's?" she breathed out, fingers lifting all his work from the table to plop in a chair beside him to read over them without asking. He let her, finding it humorous she was surprised. Like she wouldn't ever realize how intelligent he really was because of who he is. His face held a stoniness though, the elation internally felt over her being here and touching his things in awe not marking one expression to his face. 

"Aren't you done?" he asked with a roll of his eyes, the words biting and cold. "You can have the book, it's right here. I finished that essay a hour ago--" He grinned then, a little meaner than kind because he still had an image to hold, and he snatched his essays from her lean fingers with a matching chuckle. The look of surprise was what he had been expecting, but Hermione instead just looked at him with her head tilted ever so slightly in a mild examination. He was use to such things from more evil people in the world. His aunt being one of them right before she dove into his head, so his expression was blank, appearing far older than he was, and Hermione seemed like she was seeing right through it. He gathered his things quickly, his heart pounding fiercely in his chest as adrenaline flooded his system. This was why he wouldn't ever,  **ever** be with someone while he was trying to help save the world. She was a distraction, a beautiful distraction that was breaking down walls, and testing his skills of Occumacy because she had to be trying to peer in his head with such an all encompassing look. 

"Your topic is really interesting, may I read it after you hand it in?" she asked in an expected voice that had told him he better say yes. The young male turned, tossing his leather satchel on his shoulder and met her eyes. Nasty words filled his head, knowing every single thing he could say that would make her cry herself to sleep. Cruelty not lost on the Slytherin, and how he wanted too now. Needed to prove to himself that he could always be mean to her. 

"If you desire," was all he said, hating he agreed to something so trivial and stupid as allowing Hermione to read his essay on the Troll War because she found at one glance it to be interesting. He turned, leaving the library swiftly but steps were coming after him. He heard her, smelled her even in the small alcove of books before her fingers touched his forearm. He turned around, her face a hair from his as he inhaled a sharper breath. She smiled then, and he swore he absolutely forgot about everything he was doing. 

"Malfoy--" he wanted to cut her off, lips brushed to hers to shut her up entirely. Seeing his bag dropping off his shoulder to crash loudly to the ground as he crowded her space, hands desperate in his cling to her hips. Her fingers would tangled into soft stands of hair for a second, mouth responding more gently than he would ever allow, and the fierce sweep of his fantasy brought him back to senses. Breaking their contact of only fingers on his forearm with a wicked gleam to his eye as he responded with a, "yes?"

She responded with a blush, and it brought out all the freckles against her nose that he hadn't been aware of being there since they rarely came so close. The witch didn't say anything though, not actually giving him reason to stopping him in the aisle of books, breathes mingling together as he was more than aware that they were having another all encompassing moment that would risk him breaking his own rules. 

"I just wanted to give you this," she whispered as if it was truly a secret, and his brows did furrow slightly to the exchange. Eyes burrowing into watching her slip him a small folded piece of paper, the very edge of her fingertips shaking from nerves. She wouldn't entirely meet his gaze, but when she did it held the confidence he always saw in her, a bravery that proved the want to be a Lion in the war. She turned away once he took the parchment, grabbing her bag and book from his table to stroll right out of the space entirely. Draco remaining still a moment before opening the note, finding her handwriting different than he was use too and wondering it if was a muggle thing to write so plainly. 

_I found this spell on sealing lacerations, but if you change this one word you actually inflict it. I am not sure what you are apart of Draco... I worry for you. Maybe this will help._

\--

Draco knew about Dumbledore's Army. He watched from the shadows of a high pillar that no one took the time to look up at to see how they met up. Umbridge would be furious. And that thought alone made Draco giddy in excitement. He slipped around the back end of the door before it closed, pressing himself against the edge in practiced ways to get behind something large enough to watch and yet remain unseen. They were practicing defense, spells, and various levels of wand work that he already knew but found their drive to learn a breath of fresh air to the boy trapped in the darkness. A spot of jealousy flared that he couldn't walk out and be apart of this, actually hiding in the far corners of the room while they practiced. It went on like this for a few weeks. Draco slipping in behind a group, and spending the afternoon recording what they were learning. He got most of his school work done while in hiding, never being noticed with their attentions so focused on the work. The laughter and smiles had effect on him, though Draco wouldn't ever admit such a thing, or more notice that it had. He smiled continuous those weeks more than he ever did the entire time in school, or really in his life when he took the second to realize the soft, lifted quite stunning smile was in fact genuine.

Draco liked watching Granger. The focus of her spells, the precision of her delivery from the vocal to the twist of her wand. He wished she would practice more non verbal, knowing of anyone in the room next to himself, she could more than handle such training. But Umbridge wasn't assisting the children here like she should, even Voldemort didn't understand the Ministry involvement and was working on taking full control of them himself. It would be all in time he supposed, and in the now, Draco was thankful to spend his days watching people of his age want to fight back as well. Though the Slytherins weren't apart of it, their leader kept them well informed. Blaise mocking the same training to keep them all up to speed. Not that Draco wanted all his friends trained in the manor he was back at home, he wouldn't ever place anyone through the horrid things he's been apart of.

He had been so lost in thoughts he hadn't actually realized everyone had left. The quiet in the large room was strange, and off putting enough that it forced him to rise and walk out into the open space. He looked around then, taking note of all the researched books lost into the magical bowels of this particular room. The shifting of the space subtle enough while he was in it to include a trunk of weapons he favored. 

"Did you learn anything today?" a teasing voice pierced through the space, and Draco's instincts coiled into instant violent acts that were only held back when he peered over at the amused grin on Hermione's face. 

"I like that your patronus is an otter," he answered deeply, moving to the trunk to lift the aged wooden lid with a groan of resistance from the hinges. Inside were various daggers, and Draco smoothed his fingers across them all with a humming tone of satisfaction in his chest. 

"Thank you--" she said with fingers threaded together, Draco hearing the touch of wood to her fingertips as if he wouldn't know she had her wand in hand. 

"You don't need to rely on your wand for everything defense," he commented, shifting his cloak off to toss it to the floor. The rippling of fabric loud in the space less the breathing of the younger kids who were being forced into adult lives too early. Draco unbuttoned his shirt, back still facing Hermione. "You limit yourself even in here--" 

His tone was harsh, the one he used while training his own army. The one no one saw or noticed. He slipped the shirt onto his cloak along with his tie, and reached down to grab the set of daggers, fingering their handles before he half glared over to her. She was nervous. He could actually see the pulse pressing against her neck, the touch of faded color to her cheeks, and the tightening of her muscles along her wand. 

"Why haven't you told on us Malfoy?" she asked boldly, moving forward bravely as if to spin around the boy who was now wielding very real weapons. His muscles corded in response to the shift, his pale skin dotted in puckered scars, and various decorations of battle no one was aware of. He watched her gaze linger over his torso, knowing she was putting pieces together in a way that would be dangerous for everyone, but he felt he needed her. With all that was about to transpire with Harry soon, he needed someone with him ready for battle beyond what Dumbledore's Army was preparing them for. 

"Because they need to learn," he answered seriously, blonde locks kissing the high planes of his cheekbones, steps crossing to match her circular motions. He twirled the daggers skillfully, "I could throw these at you now and sever one of your major arteries. Which one do you think I would aim for?" She flinched, that much he would give her, ever brave in equally not showing her fright everywhere else.

"My leg mostly, if only to cause me trouble in running away," she answered him with a step closer just when he threw the dagger, her wand whipped out to deflect the blade with a shield. The metal clanking to the floor to slide over the marble surface in a screech of noise. Draco grinned. Watching her chest heave in adrenaline and shock he had actually threw the weapon. 

"How dare you!" she half shrieked, and Draco had to suppress the desire flowing through his head at the furious look marked on her face. How he loved her mad. Something raw birthing out of her very soul to explode on anyone unsuspecting. It had been her punch to his own face in third year that had started this crush, knowing truly down to every cell in his body that they were meant to be together. The balance she created in his life, the light in his darkness, the control in his chaos. 

"That is what you are missing in here Hermione," he said using her first name for added effect, and maybe because he might have forgotten to keep his face to call her Granger. He swallowed lightly, throwing the second dagger across the room to burrow into a bulls eye. Her shocked gaze lingered on the weapon before glaring at him again, her chestnut eyes flaring in heated rage that she some how retained back for his own pleasure of witnessing. Her steps moved closer with fingers raised in want to chide him over attempting any offensive move in dueling. 

"What exactly are we missing? Actually hurting one another? What if I had missed that shield!" 

"Than the dagger would be in your thigh, I don't miss--" he said with a half snarl, the perfume of her hair half drugging him. He took a step back, muscles coiling into a fighting position that forced her to stop her forward progression with a look of horror on her face as if she expected him to harm her with his fists. He could. He wouldn't ever. With a press of his heels he flipped back entirely, landing perfectly on the ground a few paces behind her. The puff of magical smoke the only indication he had been standing mere steps away from her before. She gasped, glaring now at the dark mark staining his pale skin.

"You claim you are muggle proud, yet you are confident in relying on only your magic for defense." He released his pose, brushing his hair from his eyes to let out a half sigh the longer she glared at his tattoo of shame and necessity. She softened in her expression only hair but it was all encompassing, Draco knowing exactly what it looked like when Hermione was thinking. 

"What are you Draco?"

"What I have to be Hermione," he said quietly, their eyes locked so firmly on one another he felt for once she was beginning to see more of who he was under all the illusions he painted in the foreground. She reached out then in a curious way, touching a few of the scars along his skin that he barely flinched too before moving to better look at the dark mark. Her touch hot to his ever freezing body that actually managed to catch his breath in his chest in a small gasp. He gripped her wrist to stop the touching, her eyes moving upward between curtains of soft curly hair. "You need to consider that the enemy will always go for the kill, there is no other choice in defense or how you protect yourself. If you fail, you aren't cast across the room on soft spelled floors. You die Hermione-- or they capture you and then you will wish you had died." 

She worried her lip then, Draco knowing the words were sinking into her large brain and he appreciated that she was listening. That maybe she stood a real chance at surviving what was to come at the Ministry because he knew she and Ron and maybe a few others would be by his side. And Draco would do everything he could to keep them alive, furious with the plan to begin with. Even if they didn't know it, Draco was ahead of the curve on both the Orders and the Deatheaters sides. 

"Why did you take it?"

"I do what I must--" He cut her off, moving out of her space to recover a set of wooden bo's. Signally with a set of hands for her set her wand down and let him show her a few things. She complied, and a warm burst of something unfamiliar half swallowed the dark child in light as she removed her cloak and took the weapon in hand. Draco moved to show her a few moves he knew with hand to hand combat for the next few hours. The pair not having conversation on why they were allowing this moment to happen, some how both knowing that it would be a secret for now. That it could be everything to their survival in the future.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: death; tw: blood; tw: violence

Draco tied up a set of black leather boots, his clothes tight fitted armor of sorts that was spelled for concealment, and various other necessary requirements to swiftly leave the castle and get into Hogsmead at a decent time. The mark he was tailing tonight was rumored to be dealing with the Order, and it was necessary for him to learn what he was getting into. More so he could compare it to what the Deatheaters were planning as well. Draco had to balance the light and darkness, hold a level of equal understanding on their missions and viewpoints. All he knew was that he had to obtain a layer of objectivity to be able to assist Harry in the shadows. He moved as a puff of smoke, and reappeared down the secret hall from the actual darkness. Being a Deatheater had its perks, and his required harsh training was proving to be of great asset to him no matter the invisible bruises it was permanently scarring. Draco was ordered to capture this man and leave him at the drop point, but he hadn't been told when exactly that needed to happen. So he would watch, and wait. See what more he could gather before the Order member was killed off. It was a necessary sacrifice to his cause, and though he felt remorse over knowing this man would in fact die horribly once trapped in his Father's manor, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Following someone was the most dangerous kind of work for the children of his Unseen Army, and Malfoy was more inclined to take on the jobs than others. What he hadn't anticipated was the Order member talking casually to a Deatheater as if they more than knew one another. A rat in his own ranks hadn't been foreseen and Draco's heart hammered the longer he listened, the Order warlock being told of the plans tonight to trick Harry into finding his kidnapped god father Sirus Black. Draco sneered. How dare this person throw a hook into his own plans. Draco having spent weeks trying to work around all the plans, even attempting to trick the elf into providing Harry a clue even if his aunt barked orders. The boy sighed out of sheer annoyance, the Order couldn't know this information early. They needed Harry to go recover the prophecy and this was the best route to get him there, Draco knew this, and he knew of the dangers involved. But he would be there to be sure they got out in time for Dumbledore to help, that was more than confident of.

He slipped up onto the roof above the pair, releasing two daggers in each of his hands before he dropped down from the staggering height to land between the rats. With barely a second to react, he had slit both their throats, warm blood spraying to coat the black leather of his armor while he turned to burrow the weapon into the order members heart with a quick twist to end his life more swiftly, and grabbed the betrayer with a healing spell along his neck enough so he wouldn't bleed out. All that shown was his eyes, the Malfoy color clear to the Deatheater who went to cast a spell that Draco blocked with a faint shield spell between them. His hand gripped along the edge of his still bleeding throat, squeezing it as he pressed him against the wall.

"Who else did you speak too--" he demanded, the much older warlock glaring in a half manic way. Draco seeped a spell into the captured's skin, a heat sheering to curl flesh to a blackened hue, his blood boiling under gloved hands that he muffled in silent screams. The boy's heart pounded, internally cringing at the torturous act in a way that made him feel his soul shatter slightly in pieces that he was certain he couldn't recover again. Though his gaze held an intensity that proved that he wasn't playing around the man shook his head, Draco removing the silencing spell to listen to his raspy voice fill him in on all he told, the boy's hands trembled enough for himself to notice and he allowed an anger to his plans falling apart burst out in a half snarl of frustrations that landed the dagger swiftly into the man's chest, twisting the blade around the ribs to pierce the beating organ of his heart before he ripped it out. Draco grabbed their wands, and in seconds was out of the city, a sweep of smoke leading him back to the castle.

Draco moved quickly down the halls to get back to his chambers when he heard it. A struggle of bodies, and muffled noises of his friends voices against others. He peered around the corner of the hall, his back pressed against the stone as he recognized some of Umbridge's squad holding onto captured Gryfindors. Hermione's tufts of curly brown hair caught his immediate attention, Draco's gaze narrowing slightly in attempt to understand what was happening.

"Harry hurry up!" Hermione said quickly, elbowing the Slytherin holding her tightly around her waist, Ginny having launched her Bat Boogy hex on someone else who was currently screaming down the hall. Draco cast a silence charm on them to aid in whatever Harry was doing. Putting together the pieces that his Father was ahead of schedule in his plans, and an awful realization settled on him. That he might have been too late in dealing with the rat in Hogsmead. Blood still caked his leather clothes, face shrouded with a covering over most of his features. He watched everything unfold with utter silence, his gaze hardening by the second as his body coiled in ready launch of attack. Umbridge appeared, and dragged the group into the room. Draco waited, half wanting to remove his armor and get in on the conversation but Hermione and Harry ended up dragged out of the room with the toad woman in tow. Hermione's gaze somehow met his, it was a fleeting second, and one he cherished for the moment because it spoke silent volumes that she had a plan of her own. He nodded lightly before they were out of sight and he slipped around to open the door to the office, his friends knowing it was him instantly though he was covered in black and more blood. 

"Go--" He demanded, his friends removing their hands from the others. Ginny glared something fierce at Draco but he paid her little mind, reaching out to grab Nevelle's forearm who nearly cried out from the staining of blood along his shirt. "The woods, meet them there, they will be out," he said deeply in tone enough to mask his voice, the other Slytherin's stepping back to act afraid of Draco as to not expose his identity. The moment they were alone, Draco slammed the door, peeling back the layer of his face mask to toss floo powder into the fireplace to call the manor.

'Father!" he demanded, and the blonde man paused his steps in the hall moving swiftly to the fireplace to hiss his concern. 

"How dare you--"

"Is it happening tonight, I caught rats in Hogsmead I had to dispose of them both. I need a clean up there immediately, I believe the order might be aware," Draco watched his Father's brows pinch together giving him the answer to his original question. "I believed I contained it, I just want you to be aware Father." It was his cover, the words decorated to express that he wasn't actually going to be there tonight when he was. Lucius looked at him then, knowing that prying ears would hear the correct things, and he offered only a curt nod that Draco saw he was hoping this plan would bring him in better light with the Dark Lord. Draco knew there was no chance for his Father. He was a coward, and nothing could change what he did in the past. Even more so that Draco would be sure to aid in Harry Potter thwarting the Death Eaters tonight. 

He pulled his head out and rose with a released growl of annoyance, palms curling in on themselves. 

"Draco what happened on the mission?" Blaise asked immediately, Draco looked over to his friend before he glanced at Pansy rooting through Umbridges things. 

"I had to kill them, couldn't risk it getting out early and I wasn't sure who they spoke too. This is delicate, I will put all my money they will find a way to the Ministry. I am going to travel there now, through the floo, I need to stay ahead of all of them. My Father is still at the manor, I believe they think Harry will need a little time before they infiltrate the room. I need you three on the halls, keep the professors in the order busy with anything. A distraction, or stir trouble, anything to keep them unaware that Harry and the others left. Draco checked his pockets to be sure he had his supplies on him, his armor equipted with more things than anyone understood. Draco actually used more muggle techinques when fighting than most of his trainers knew, they taught him dark spells. Ones that could make someone crazy, able to cast the unforgivables with barely a flick of his wand. He liked feeling the biting motions of blades into flesh more than whispered or demanded spells, maybe because he felt them dirty from the Deatheaters and Voldemort himself forcing the boy to learn such things. 

With a shift in position he peered at his crew, everyone looking nervous but ready for anything. 

"Pansy, collect what you can in here then get out. I don't want you all caught up in the Umbridge business. We will spin a story that the other overpowered you all, even if that is unlikely people will believe it, even more with that signature move from the Weaslette," Draco sneered, but offered a half grin at his friend who had gotten caught up with that spell. "Everyone be safe, if you don't see them make a move off the school grounds tell me through our coins so I can return before anyone realizes I am gone. Blaise you are my cover, don't let anyone in our room upstairs. Good?"

A round of yes's signaled his leave, and Draco quickly flooed to the ministry, racing immediately to get to the elevators with a lift of his mask covering most of his head. A grey, stormy gaze lingered on all the buttons, waiting for the fierce drop of the elevator to half force a hurl from his stomach. The unspeakables room would be dangerous alone, but he knew the Death Eaters would be here soon and he wasn't to know of the depth in this operation but more he really couldn't be caught being here. He would be captured and tortured for his treachery and there wouldn't be much a way to spin his reasoning for being there other than he was to disrupt it. Draco took a moment of peace to breath, to steady his racing heart and to capture a balance to his thoughts so he could function. 

\--

He heard the crack. The awful noise of glass breaking apart and there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. Draco's arm was bleeding profusely, but he couldn't pause to stop the wound from leaving a dotted crimson trail along the floor. Ron was screaming. Draco watching all the fighting with instincts crying out to get into the fray. He threw a spell towards Ron, hoping the stinging spell would cause the jellyfish to let go of his skin, spells of all colors were ricocheting around the space. It was chaos as he swept from space to space, room's changing so quickly into different environments it felt almost dream like in state. His head was clear, leaping behind one of the death eaters to twist his neck and break it before he could harm Luna. The girl peered curiously at him but it wasn't until he heard Hermione's shouting words of spells that he made a full run to aid her. 

"Protego!" Hermione shouted, blocking the awful spell that was directed her way, the witch ducking to hid behind a desk that exploded into the air from the forceful attack form the Death Eater. Draco heard her scream again, and it drew a nasty aura from the boy. Something beyond dark festering in the shadows he was hiding in while taking out the enemy, he stepped out in the light then. Circling the man attacking her with a groan of leather armor, and confident positioning. 

"What is this?" he was yelled at, thankful the man didn't realize it was Draco. Knowing he looked like something told in the muggle stories of superheros and assassins. His black attire was tight, and form fitted. Far from the cloaks and masks in warlock clothing of the attire forced on them. The young boy didn't move, wand firmly in his tightened grip as he waited for the launch of spells, and he deflected the first two, shifting his position to better get himself closer to Hermione whose cheek was bleeding and her own wand was firmly pointed at the Death Eater. 

"You need to go and help the others, my Father is going after Harry directly, my Aunt will be here soon," he warned the girl, ricocheting one of the spells into a massive structure. Draco twisted his wand into an intricate design, a symbol glowing into the air as it pulsed in green light. He punched through the floating rune, the light expelling out into hundreds of directions aimed right for the other man who screamed at the singe marks leaving little dots of holes through out his body. He stood there a second, shock marking his face when blood started pooling from all the holes, like a collapsing fountain he fell to the floor with a sickening finality in tone as Draco curled forward in his own pain. A groan leaving his body as he fought the spell that had caught his arm earlier suddenly seeped into his bloodstream. He screamed then, a fever dotting his skin as Hermione yanked on the armor, severing it with her wand to get a better look at it. Black filled his veins, the dark pigment obvious under pale skin. His breath gasping like he was being petrified from the inside out, oxygen no longer reaching his brain. Hermione was yelling at him, his lips bluing entirely as he seemed to be allowed a few final breaths of air. 

"Move!" Severus demanding tone was instant enough that Hermione actually fell backwards, gripping her wand tightly with a look of horror as Severus reversed the spell. Draco's eyes were glassy and chest no longer moved to the point the professor cut into his armor, pealing it back enough to touch bare skin and shot an electric bolt of magic through is chest. The boys body rose and released in a constriction of muscles but didn't continue moving on it's own, the blood leaking from his wounds red once more as Severus cursed fiercely in a panic and preformed the magical cpr spell once more. Draco gasped, groaning in instant pain as he gripped Severus thigh and screamed through the spell working through his body. He shook, and convulsed as the black ooze leaked out of the cursed inflicted wound, the boy slamming his fist to the ground to reset his pain tolerance mentally. Quieting down enough for the battle in the main chamber to be heard in the distance. 

"The order is here," Draco said, and Severus nodded lightly.

"They didn't want me here but I knew you would be here. Ms. Granger get to the others, try to get them out. The fighting is too much for you children, I need you out of harms way," Severus didn't seem phased that Hermione was witnessing this interaction, his god father always aware of more than people realized. It was what made him such an invaluable member to the order and the death eaters. Draco rolled over to press his knuckles into the ground before rising, groaning through the shift of his sore body before he caught Hermione's gaze. She was quiet. Ever calculating everything, and Draco mourned a moment for the veil of knowledge she was working out. The boy stepping closer just as Severus ran out the door to get back into the fight. He shifted into her space, wiping the smear of blood on her cheek with a haggared breath. 

"They aim to kill--" he said quietly, cradling his torso lightly. She nodded, looking back at the man he had killed with a paling to her skin. "You don't have to kill as them, I will do it for you if necessary. I am looking after you all, Harry too. I won't let you die." 

She gave him a frustrated look, one that threatened to make him smile. And maybe he did. Something small and fleeting that had immediate effect on the woman. "Don't you die too--" Was all she said before storming from the room, Draco lifting his mask before slipping through another room to get to Ron again and be sure he was ok, not realizing the battle that was truly raging in the room with veiled doorway. Only attempting to keep the other kids his age alive best he could before they all escaped. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: torture

**Summer Before Fifth Year**

"I killed him--" Draco swallowed down the feeling this brought him, kept muttering the three words over and over, starring at his hands like they truly weren't stained in red. But they were. How the depths of crimson colors proved that death like this was messy, nothing like the spell casting of an unforgivable that seemed to steal the very life from the their bodies. No. He had stabbed someone. Right in the side of the neck, the artery spraying the ground like a punctured hole in a hose. "I killed him--" 

Draco felt sick, hearing his mother saying calming things to him, and not knowing what exactly she was attempting him to understand while the panic settled. It was his first murder. The one he had to do in order to bare the mark, and he cried fiercly over it all. Shaking down to to his legs until they collapsed to collide to the floor. 

 _"Draco-- get it together,"_   his mother hissed into his ear. The words in adjacent to when he was a younger boy and stealing pastries from the dessert table at some noble event. The chiding quieted him down, the boy swallowed thickly as if the very act committed wanted to strangle his throat. The tears melting into the blood sprayed onto his face before ceasing all together. 

 _"That's it--"_   he was cooed, and his panic settled into an awful numbness. The trembling not reaching his fingers anymore, understanding what he was being asked to bare. Knowing his parents weren't strong enough for this. That just as Harry Potter was to be the Boy Who Lived. The Hero in their darkness, here he was... the soldier forged in it. The horrid reality that he would be forced on the path of evil when he didn't want to be there was his worse nightmare.  

 _"Let it go--"_ the orders soothed into his head, blanketing him to release the effects of his sins. The choice he had just made, the mark that would be burned into his skin forever along his forearm. Draco Malfoy. Pureblood. Bully. Second in Class. Murder. Deatheater. Enemy of the Savior.

"I killed him Mother--" he said looking back down at his red hands, smearing them against his thighs in want for the blood to wash away. All the heavy thoughts settling onto his mind. _Already forming a plan of what he must do._

 _"You had too,"_   he was told. And he did. There was no choice, not when it came to all he needed to do, what he was now more than determined to do. 

 _"It will get easier,"_   Narissa said, and Draco believed her in a sad sort of way. This was his fate to bare, to kill in the name of evil to aid the power in good. A few stray tears slid down his cheeks, but they would be the final ones. No more would be allowed to let this emotion show. The muggle warlock's deadened gaze forever locked into his awful nightmares-- where they belonged.

\--

**Summer Before Sixth Year**

_Drip drip drip drip clank_

The noise was continuous. Chin heavy upon his chest while the shifting movement of his equilibrium kept his body swaying slightly from the hanging position. His body laid out mostly bare, less the low pair of stained, soiled slacks resting on his hips. Muscles coiled tight in their exposure in restraint forced in a stretching of arms above his head. He lost the feeling to his fingers hours ago, his wrists cuffed and dangling with a clanking accompaniment to the water hitting a pail in the basement of his own home.

_Drip drip drip clank clank_

He released a shutter, the temperature around his body dropping from the dampness clinging as a second skin to his now fevered state. A line of saliva oozed to mix with blood from the outer corner of his busted lip, leaving a trail of liquid to bleed down his chest as a cascading crimson tear. His unconsciousness welcome.

_Drip drip drip CRACK_

He screamed. The noise raw as his consciousness roared to life from the whip splitting open his back, rich coppery scents flooded the small cell colliding with the clanking of metals grinding against his restraints while he attempted to release their holds.

_CRACK CRACK CRACK_

His screams filled the cellar, the old metal of irons protesting to the slide of release of hinges as another walked in. Draco swallowed any whimper when the lashings stopped, stormy eyes lifting to gather a pool of saliva to spit on the ground at the Deatheaters feet when he was met with their laughter at his expense of torture.

"Go ahead, you only make me stronger," he threatened, the second male punching his gut making him groan before laughing almost crazied in the space. He goaded them on. Finding the near manic state of his mind required to survive these torturous acts was a pleasant one to hover along. This went on for the summer. At least he assumed it was passing, time not a real or constant number to his days. They burned him. Seeped spells into his head that had him twitching on the ground screaming until they silenced him. When he stopped screaming they starved him, yet the boy only ever kept his body strong in mild attempt to keep his head. Rationing and leaving mentally in meditation when he needed so he wasn't left so vulnerable. Severus gave him shots of vitamins and mineral substances in secret when he could, stuck the needles right into his thighs so the others wouldn't force him to throw up the nutrients when they struck his body into another convulsion.

Today, when finally he was released from the bindings his legs gave out from under him, wands pointed into his back as he was dragged upstairs to be forced to his knees upon his Lord's feet. Voldemort held a neutral expression, and Draco only gave the man his full attention but at his feet. Ignoring the obvious disheveled state of his Father or more the heavy breathing of his mother who he could tell wanted him to give her the smallest acknowledgment. Bruises littered his flesh, cuts festered in infection until the fever had him seeing delusions. Even now in such a broken state he was certain this could be not real, but ever strong Draco Malfoy was. More so than even Voldemort understood.

"There is one thing that will redeem your family's honor in my eyes," the hissing tone drew his eyes from the floor to his masters. Gray hues darkening and listening clearly to be sure he understood entirely. Voldemort grinned, leaning forward as Nagini slithered across his heels. Draco slipped into his safe room mentally immediately, all his training with Snape no matter the weeks of torture forcing the child to be strong enough to keep the man before him from knowing of his own army. Of his plan to aid Harry Potter. Draco released the faces he knew, stuffing Hermione, and Snape. All his evening activities spying and killing his followers in the dark, and tucked them all into a tight little box. It retained the shape of a Chocolate Frog card of Harry Potter in his head. Something no one would ever thought to tear in half and open the key to such a tightly safe place in his mind. The only place where everything would be revealed.

Voldemort slipped the words of his demands between them only, his presence lingering in the folds of his weakened mind as Draco lost focused sight on what was actually ahead of him in the real world, and he too slipped mentally into his playground. The muggle children swinging as Voldemort and himself sat on the bench.

"Oh you are clever," Voldemort said between them, the words echoing slightly as if the open space was something hallow and solid. Draco remained silent, blood leaking from his nose from the invasion of his head as he tried to retain a level of consciousness. "You are to kill Dumbledore, I care not of the how. That and I require that you find us a way into Hogwarts so we may weaken their hold, by school end."

Draco nodded, his chin slouching forward and entire upper body half colliding to the floor as Voldemort tore from his head. Hands tightened against his biceps, dragging him to his feet before a spell wrapped around him to force him to stand before them all. His eyes opened slowly, sweeping up to look at the long table of Deatheaters. Finally meeting his Fathers sunken in gaze with a half given Malfoy sneer to his lips. The spell released and he stood on his own, wiping the blood falling from his nostril before bowing exceedingly low to Voldemort.

"It will be done sir--" he answered confidently, "it would bring me only pleasure to serve you. I will not fail this request like my Father." 

"Ah, see Lucius? That is a true Malfoy..." Voldemort laughed then, the group of followers chuckling lightly at his fathers expense. Draco felt a hair of guilt. But he showed not an ounce of it. If his father as well would need to fall to save humanity, and all the wizarding world-- so be it. 

\--

"Draco?" Narsissa hovered in the shadows of his room. He knew she was there and yet he continued to ignore her in a way he never would have in the past. A bloodied cloth was pressed into his left eye, Draco flipping a medical tome from his own personal library as he attempted to heal the worse of his wounds magically. It was impressive in its self but the young boy cared not for the skills of his magic when his focus was intently on what had been inflicted to his body. He wasn't here to show off in the least, and eventually he liked to think he would make quite the doctor some day. Maybe in the muggle world if he helped save it.

"Draco," this time it was his Father and he continued to ignore them both even when the door closed behind the tall, brooding man. A light, faint blue hue filled the space as he sealed close the cuts with his wand. Hermione having showed him the spell and found it one of the most useful ones he knew. Able to cast it wandless if it was dire too.

"Draco do not ignore--"  
"Be quite Father, lower your voice. You are terribly loud and it's unnecessary,"  
"Don't talk--"  
"Get out then if you will not lower your voice. You see me? Look at your son and see what your failures have caused."

It was cruel to say, but his cover was everything. Lucius not knowing that Draco had been there to thwart the entire operation even if the Order hadn't showed up. Draco knew he risked punished for his Father's mistake and he had been mentally prepared for what he had endured. Though it hadn't made it any easier, he wasn't ok right now. and they were here to worry and dance around the truths of their actions. That their family was apart of this side of the war because they were scared, and fools. Unlike the Weasley's who lacked any sort of power in the wizarding world by way of money or name, their pure blood line was fighting for the Order. For the right side. Draco was inclined to protect every one of them for this very reason. Including the insufferable, food stuffing, Hermione pinning Ronald.

"What is your task," his mother inquired more business like, yet he picked up the tone of worry always rattling the edge of her voice when she was frightened. He told them both while slipping a potion down his throat to rid his skin of bruises and his fever. She gasped slightly, Draco moving about the space to better prepare a bath and various clothes to change into. 

"I will not fail him," he said seriously, but it was a tone he wanted them to hear and more so believe. He knew the Dark Lord would peer into their heads and demand to know what he said. To test him if he had been lying, and was just like them. He wouldn't give Voldemort any reason less to believe he wouldn't be able to deliver him both Dumbledore's death and an infiltration into Hogwarts. 

"This is suicide," Narsissa gasped, her lean fingers squeezing his fathers forearm. But the older Malfoy kept his tongue, knowing he wouldn't fair better at releasing his true feelings right now at least. 

"Please leave," Draco responded further, his expression stoney and obvious in the age he had just grown well past as he stood proud and half broken before his parents. They left swiftly, Draco closing the door to his room before he walked to the window, cracking it lightly and whistled. A black Raven flew into the room, dropping a bundle of letters that he hadn't expected. Worry pooled into his belly that his Army had fallen apart in his absence, but while he read through them all quickly they seemed to have had everything under control. The correct targets had still been managed in elimination, and Blaise had even discovered the location of the real locket of one of Voldemorts Horcrux's while Belatrix had pranced the elf around his house and the young warlock put the pieces together. This would be good news to slip to Harry when he could.

He incinerated all the letters, but before he could close the window with a few treats to his secret bird a little fat owl zoomed into the room, half bouncing off the walls until Draco's seeker skills kicked in and he caught the damn thing.

"Whoa there, you lost?" he asked, groaning uncomfortably from the motion of lifting his arm. A small scroll was attached to his leg, and Draco unrolled it. A gold plated hair pin of a mermaid fell out and into his palm. The portkey was apparent immediately and instant in it's transportation. He whispered the words to break the Malfoy charms keeping him there until he was swept away, landing squarely in a space he didn't find familiar. His wand held out in offense before he heard a faint gasp upstairs, the sound just enough that he barely showed an ounce of surprise when Hermione ran down the basement stairs and half collided into him. 

"You're alive!" she gasped out, gripping his arms, her lovely face only a hair from his enough that he smelled her perfume, and almost turned his cheek enough to press the softest kiss to her lips. Fingers pressed into his cheek bones, and she contiuned examining all of him as he remained in a stance of half shock before her hair fell into his mouth. A strong hug wrapping around his upper body as she squeezed him tight enough to make a few broken ribs groan in protest. 

"I'm sorry--" she exclaimed when he made a slight uncomfortable noise, stepping back more shy at her delivery of hello. Draco didn't know what she was playing at. They had spent an unfathomed amount of time together last year after he had gotten over the fact he most likely shouldn't reveal his secrets to her. But Hermione was brilliant. And Draco had needed someone on the light side to understand his involvement. Friends was a far from the truth between them, at least to Draco all he knew was that he found her laugh distracting in a good way. Warm feelings always buzzed and tingled in his gut whenever she learned a new spell and she brushed fingers to his wrist to show him the movements. Draco might have falling passionately and quietly guarded in love with Hermione Granger, but he never saw it. The hardened boy so caught up in war to realize what was right in front of him. That maybe Hermione was growing feelings too.

"What you did was dangerous, I need to get back--" he said immediately, holding the bobby pin out with his wand pointed at it. The owl had been in his hand when he ported into her family home and the thing flew up the stairs with familiarity. 

"Wait--" she half begged. "Please, I need your help." 

Draco stopped. His current state obvious in what he had been put through, yet Hermione pretended like she didn't see the signs of torture. As if she too expected him to be strong in her presence, so he straightened his shoulders. Raising a groomed brow at her to explain her request. 

"My parents, can you help me rid their memories?" 

"Of what?" Draco now realizing he was in the basement of a muggle house. His curiosities peaked a hair but he didn't show it. 

"Of... well me," Hermione answered and Draco's heart hammered in his chest. What was she playing at?

"Are you kidding?" 

"I'm really not, I am fully capable of doing this myself, I have tested many theories--"

"Slow down, why?"

She sat down on the steps, casting a charm to keep their conversation between themselves. Draco stayed where he had first landed, folding his arms across his chest while his mind played through what he knew of mind manipulation. She seemed settled on this plan, and Draco found he would already be helping her. 

"I don't want them hunted down, I am scared Draco. Not just with what I am not in this war, but in what I am," 

Draco palmed his face, scratching at the slight scruff along his chin. He needed to get back, not sure who would stop by his room. If they found him missing then he returned later, he would be under torture again. 

"You promised to keep us safe-- please, I don't want Ron or Harry to know. They have so much to worry on,"

"Where is safe for them?" Draco asked quickly to stop her from rambling, Hermione rising from the steps. The look of determination he grew to find attractive filling her face. They were swift. Their bags already packed while they worked together to rid the home of everything Hermione. It was horrible if Draco was honest, their memories taken from them without permission. A crime in it's self they were both breaking. But both her parents come morning would be gone from London, and Hermione would be without her muggle life until the war was over. 

"When will you tell them?" Draco asked, and Hermione remained with a suitcase in the back porch. Eyes to the stars and the wanning moon in the sky. The boy couldn't look at the sky with her right there, and he stared unashamed of his closeness, the stoop only so big for the pair. 

"When I have too, Ill lie about it for a while, they can know when it comes up. Ill be ok, I can easily stay with the Weasley's, and I have enough money to grab a room if I need too," 

Draco reached out, it wasn't allowed. And his instincts cried out to stop from curling his fingers in a loose strand of her hair. But he did, and he threaded the annoying curl back into place. Feeling emotions that he shouldn't, ones that distracted him from his missions, from all he had to do. 

"They are hurting you," she said without looking at him, the words so soft and caring that Draco felt the wetting of his eyes enough that he shoved the emotion away with a firm swallow and a faint step back.

"Yes, it aids my cover. Please be careful," he said quietly, Hermione turning with a sarcastic gleam to her eye. Draco huffed a laugh before he could stop it. "Don't kidnap me anymore, not without warning at least."

Hermione chuckled sadly, "I will kidnap you when I want too, and thank you for helping me with this-- I didn't know who else to ask. I hadn't thought it possible without hurting them. Just-- you made me sure of my choice."

"You don't have to be so brave you know," 

"You don't have to be alone you know,"

They stayed close for a second. The parting tone of their words always the same, telling each of them to be careful. To silently beg to keep their secrets. To try not to be who they were when they both knew they would only ever be themselves. 

"Goodbye Granger,"  
"Goodbye Draco,"

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Sixth Year**

"You did what?" Draco was pacing in the defense against the dark arts classroom with a subtle limp to his left leg. He had taken the nasty potion to correct his shattered knee cap a week ago but it was still healing from a recon over the end of summer gone bad when a dark warlock had stumbled upon his position and blasted him clean off a roof. On top of that he had underwent a deep level of torture that he couldn't think on in any capacity. It had been awful to say the least, hence the word torture. He understood that what they did to him was suppose to strength him, make him mentally more adapt to trump Dumbledore should he chose to face the old man. His Father's failure was of the worse kind, and Draco had paid the price the most out of the Malfoly family, the Dark Lord making him an example for his Father to witness. The worse of it wasn't that he lost his voice from the hours of screaming, or the new additions of scars that marked his body from the curses. It was that the Dark Lord had ordered him to kill Dumbledore to restore his family's name back to the higher ranks.

It was suicide. Just as his mother had claimed, and he was still working on how to get around it all.

He sat down, closing his eyes with a groan of pain as he felt Severus' eyes sweep to take in his state. Draco managed to hide his discomfort to any other people less it be Severus, and Blaise. And maybe the knowing gaze of Hermione if he had even bothered to look to see her heated, narrowed eyes upon his sunken, tired features.

"Your mother doesn't know I already am helping you, and I would gladly take that oath if it would keep both her and her sister out of our plans," Severus said matter of fact to the situation. Draco kept his eyes closed, cradling his stomach where a series of burns had resided from being tied up in the cage and burned with magical fire before he left the manor. Never had he been so excited to leave his own home. Though it was only aiding in providing him additional information regardless. He had so much work to do.

"You need rest--"

"I found the sister cabinet, I will work out how to repair it, but I also have to delay this mission as long as possible. I will not bring harm to the students because He wants to rule the world and is threatened by a bunch of kids. Should I speak to Dumbledore about everything yet? What does he know about me sir?"

Severus shrugged, chopping the ingredients of a beetle into a potion while they talked to keep up a visual cover should anyone walk in regardless of his new job.

"I am not telling you," Severus said, "you are weak right now weather you want to see it or not, and I won't risk exposure in case He enters your head. Rest-- give yourself a month, and we will work out what to do when the time comes to end Dumbledore's life." Draco sighed but understood, knowing his uncle most likely had a plan with Dumbledore simply because he had been given the cursed job. Something was already in the works, at least he assumed the Headmaster knew of Voldemorts plans.

\--

She must have watched him all day. It was strange not having a physical mission. One that involved him sneaking out of the castle to hunt down a mark and eliminate them for the side of good. He practiced nightly on his knife work, throwing daggers, and mixing spells into his muggle style fighting to better his offensive pushes. Draco enjoyed the speed he could obtain, the sheer ride of smoke from one place to another in a blink of an eye, adding tweaks to his weapons and various disarming spells spoken non-verbally was becoming his style. And it unfortunately was getting around-- though no one knew it was him. 

His pale gaze lingered on the walls in potions, through out defense against the dark arts drifting into one space and fading it to the background, and even through studying in the library, the piles upon piles of books only blurred and blend together to form a nothingness. Maybe today was an off day. Blaise having told Draco to take the week off as well, so he was trying. But stopping only made him realize the scale of work to be done, and how all his schoolwork seemed pointless in the grand scheme of it all. Chilled fingers creased tightly in his note taking, the quill wanting to snap under the pressure. Script becoming forced and necessary to even function in writing with the anger pooling hot and heavy in his chest. 

What was he here?

Draco flipped all his books closed, researching for hours about the vanishing cabinets properties and hoping to work out how to correctly refurbish the twin in the special room it was hidden in. The same room him and Hermione had met up in after the DA practiced. 

The hidden bathroom was exactly what he needed. Draco having settled into the tub with a noise of pleasure leaving parted lips as he sunk into the heated water. He sighed then. Wishing the shocking pains that kept twitching his muscles along his abs would stop. Draco had spent hours looking up multiple medical books on the lasting effects those cursed spells could have on his body. Those assholes. The torture wouldn't continue after this year, if he failed he was killed or forced on the run. If he succeeded, he would be Harry Potters number one enemy next to Voldemort. And that was if he wasn't killed for trying to succeed in the mission regardless. 

The quiet of the echoing room threatened to lull him to a much needed sleep, but he had avoided actually sleeping peacefully. Jarring awake minutes after crashing, fingers blown white from the intense visions that plagued his head. Voldemort was determined to punish him, and his lingering presence was taking a toll on Draco almost as equally as it was with Harry, of course the pair not realizing such things. A creak to the door brought his attention upward and his pale gaze lingered for countless seconds on her round, curious face that blossomed a fierce red when she met his.

"Oh! I am so terribly sorry-- Malfoy?" her question slipped upward in tone, as if anyone else in the student body had such alluring gray eyes and bright blonde hair. He didn't answer, his gaze slipped distant while he swallowed thickly. A dark feeling erupting under his skin, lust, and desire meshed into whispered words of duty he should be standing behind. She stepped forward to close the door, a typical furrow marking the freckled and smooth skin around her forehead while she called out his name again.

Draco wanted to kill her.

"Stop--" he said, sliding forward to press his forearms into the large tub edge to hide his face a second. Echoed words filled the room, whispers, and his own screams. The room bent in odd angles, and pale eyes scanned the room swimming in rippled waters. He looked forward, a nasty curl of a smile marking his face as he shifted up and out of the water, the splashing loud in the space under fierce steps slapped of wet feet to stone marking his path right to her side. His hands gripped her throat immediately, squeezing it until she blued. But she didn't fight him. Not once offering him challenge, or blasting him away from something wandless and chaotic. He had showed her how to get out of this position without magic, to twist and shift her weight, to use his own momentum against him. And yet no sounds left her, just a firm gaze in challenge, chestnut eyes so brown they seemed to pull him in. He released his hold, and gasped deeply while water bubbled out of his lungs.

"Draco!"

Draco woke up, his body having been pulled out of the tub and laid on the damp, chilly tile. A towel had been thrown haphazardly over his lower half but above him was Hermione, her hand raised like she was to slap him again.

"Ow, did you slap me Granger?" he retorted, coughing fiercly at the raspy delivery and dampness of soup water on his tongue. He pushed up on his elbow with an uncomfortable groan of pain in his leg and abdomen.

"Yes-- well," she flustered a second but hadn't lowered her hand. Draco reached out to lower it for her, his gaze holding a rare amusement that made her grin slightly. "Sorry-- you wouldn't wake up... and you went under; and you always deserve one anyway."

He snorted. Adjusting the towel so it wouldn't fall off, and made to rise. His bare body unfolded in show for the flustered woman who seemed to be looking firmly on his eyes as if the devil tempted her to let them wander. He narrowed his, palm tightening around the knot holding the towel. Breath stretching the muscluar scarred skin no one took notice to. The proof alone of the life he actually lived beyond the privilege everyone thought he was apart of. 

"What do you want," he offered as a response rudely, hearing her wince against the very air though not having saw it for moving to get dressed.

"Please don't do that--"

"Do what? Talk to you as I should?"

"It's not very nice, and aren't we passed all that? I just pulled you from that tub where you-- you were just floating there..."

"Always the hero you Gryffindors, He wouldn't let me perish in a tub.. trust me,"

"Can't we talk as we did before?" she asked quietly as she turned her back to him. The blonde boy pulled on his boxers and pants, belting them while he looked at her firmly. Why was here? Hermione always made a point to find him, it was subtle, and half the time he didn't notice not because he lacked the skills too, but because he didn't want to. Maybe a small part of him knew what was developing and Draco was determined to keep it at bay. But the thoughts were pointless and he moved to stand by her side. Pale fingers just touching her arm.

"In public? No, in private-- well it's hard to say. Either way, you shouldn't be watching me like you have. I don't need that atttention." He was being a little nasty and he knew it, but the dream had been more than visual. Draco having felt it down to his soul exactly what Voledmort wanted him to see and know. This was a risk talking to her now, he should be in the common room and pretending like everything was being put into place. At least enough to help Harry with anything else without his master catching sight of it when he was weak. Severus was right. He needed rest or he risked everything falling apart.

She sighed but rose from the stone bench with an airy snobbery to her space. Draco actually chuckled, running damp fingers through his wet hair to muse it to lay perfectly along his crown. 

"Do you know one called the half blooded prince?" Hermione asked, her shoulder tilted lightly while holding the doorway in her exit. He noticed her figure then. The curve of shapely hips making her waist show more. He rewet his lips.

"Never heard of them, is Prince a last name?" 

"Maybe,"

"Do you need--"

"No, just wondering, see you Draco," 

And she was gone. Just like that the world crashed back to rest upon his shoulders, and the Slytherin boy tossed the rest of his clothes on to walk out the door. Strides right into Blaise who handed him a rolled parchment with a grim expression he grew to know was bad news.

"Breaks over--" he was told, and he smirked through his angst of it. Waving a small group of girls tucked into a large window, not enjoying their blushes or their grins while he read the note. 

"Dammit," he said under his breath. "How do we get that wood?" His question was about the wood used for the cabinet, not realizing the damn thing would need the same type grown from the same cluster of trees. He shoved a first year to the ground as they made their way to the common room, letting the little boy see his smirk before he turned to give his attention to Blaise.

"We might need to talk to Hagrid, not sure how without raising suspicion," Blaise answered, incinerating the note since both had the name to memory. 

Draco and Blaise stood in wait for the stairs leading down stairs, and met Herminone's in the large staircase room. Watching her reach the 4th floor landing with a bite of her lip that blossomed enough red that Draco could see it plump up under her assult. They realized they both had found each other's gaze one more and broke it quickly. Draco sneered. 

"I might have a way--"


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: blood, tw: violence

6th Year After the Holidays

"Just pull it down fast," he gritted his teeth, the sharp line of his jaw tightening enough to pop in the small hidden space. Blaise's one hand curled in comfort against his shoulder, the other on the shirt clung to his back. Lashings bled through the left over shredding of fabric and skin hanging off his back. Draco braced himself, but it wasn't enough to stop the noise of discomfort when Blaise tore off what was left of the shirt. Pulling dried blood and reopening wounds that caused them to leak crimson to stain the top edge of his pants and patter to the stone floor. Draco's vision whited out, though kept it to himself as Blaise cleared his upper body until he was bare.

"This looks bad Draco," Blaise said with a tut of his tongue, tone annoyed for his friend. Draco managed a chuckle, gray eyes piercing through the window as he watched the weather.  "How did you  get out of the manor?"

"He's angry, so angry I don't know why he hasn't killed me yet. I can't move fast enough with anything. I barely made it through the floo in Hogsmead. The tunnel took forever..." Draco said quietly, skin paler than usual as he caught his reflection in the glass. He was losing weight additionally, and Draco made a mental note to eat a large dinner. 

"This isn't right--"

"What is? I hadn't anticipated the cabinet being this much of a challenge if I am honest. I am a fool. The ingredients alone have taken more time to obtain, a few I wasn't sure I could get," he winced at the spell work attempting to close up the lashings. Voldemort had many of them struck at a dinner. His Father ever forced to watch Draco punished over himself. The others probably deserved it, Draco having done everything hes been told but that was the thing. Voldemort saw no reason. No excuse necessary to cause pain to another. It was sadistic, and honestly frightening to the younger boy who was trying everything he could to keep his friends out of being Deatheaters for this very reason.

"Let me see if I can get that healing paste. Just sit down, Ill be back," Draco pressed his hands into the window, the chill of the glass bringing goosebumps to his skin. He breathed a moment. Centering his aura, and drawling about a magical energy that allowed him to slip mentally into his hidden space. A place where Voldemort couldn't reach him, where the pain and suffering he was going through harshly this year didn't meet his eyes. But steps not sounding like Blaise's became apparent, and he peered over to see Ronald chewing something that smelled of chocolate in passing before he poked his head in. 

"Beat it Weasley," he kept his back to the window, attempting to conceal what had happened with a sweep of his hand to remove the blood on the floor. His bare chest heaved slightly, and it gave the appearance he had been up to no good. Tucking his arm behind his back to keep the mark out of immediate sight. 

"Deatheaters like hiding in the dark to plot Malfoy. Or just busy as expected?" Ron chuckled, and a handful of other Gryffindor's peered into the room that translated as a sneer on Malfoy's lips. Thank god the room was dark, being shirtless in front of others wasn't something he had time to explain. Even more with the glaring dark mark on his forearm that they speculated he contained but had yet to be proved. Had this been any other situation, if they had met without expectations. Without already set systems and hatred in place from their parents, Draco would have laughed along with them. Maybe asked for help. So many countless ways to handle it less the one he was mentally preparing for. And more what would have to happen.

"I said beat it!" he drew out his wand, pointing it right at his heart. The moonlight pulled to halo his blonde hair around him but Ronald stood his ground, chewing thoughtfully though his ears were staining red in obvious anger that he was hiding around the crew around him. The red head felt safe with his friends flanking him. Draco didn't blame him really. He would have done the same had he found Weasley alone in a room with one exit.

"Always sneaking around you are, your Father alive in that manor of yours? Your Aunt there as well loving the fact they killed Harry's Godfather!" Ron yelled this matter of fact, and Draco wished the boy would walk away. Pale eyes peered behind blonde bangs, the other Gryffindor's looked like finding the Slytherin teenager alone could be the best of blessings. Draco stood his ground, lifting a groomed brow with a practiced sneer brushing his lips up into something cruel. Hoping the wouldn't step in more or he would have to erase their memories.

"Awe, now Harry really has no family now? Pity. You have plenty to give him don't you Weasley? Let him borrow a few of yours. Would your mother even notice or would she have to frantically count over the only wobbly table your parents can afford over dinner?" Draco was cold in his delivery, eyes darkening in a fury not at the tone but in that this was such a waste. They should be standing together united, and yet here they were. Forever marking their territory. Hands gripped Ron's biceps, and the Weasley finally looked infuriated. 

"Come on-- he's not even worth it," 

Draco watched them leave, listened to every footfall down the hall until nothing sounded around him. He clenched his fists. The stupid boys not realizing the blood dripping on the floor, the dark mark burning in its movement as Voldemort continued to call upon his units. Draco trembled, but remained quiet when Blaise walked into the doorway. His fury boiling to a peak and it took the clatter of his wand to the floor for him to explode. His fist collided with the wall, his roar of frustration frantic and powerful as he struck it over and over. The noise of bone struck stone in a sicking sound, splitting his skin open until white of bone filled with red. Blaise wrapped his arms around his chest. Draco screamed as if he were losing everything good in his life, elbowing his friends face to twist him up and out of his hold to shove him firmly away from him. Blaise staggered back and collapsed to the ground. And there he stood trembling, mouth open in an actual snarl.

"Calm down Draco," Blaise said with his hand up from the floor, his other holding his wand pointed at his friend. 

"What if I am wrong? What if everything I am doing is for NOTHING!" Draco screamed, curling his fists as blood dripped to the floor. With a drop against his thighs he threw his head back and screamed powerfully again. His face pinched in an expressive amount of tightened hurt, suddenly finding himself morphing it into grabbing a dagger to cut out the tattoo now burning fiercely in his skin. 

"Draco stop it--" Draco had the blade pressed into his forearm, the tattoo uncaring of the blade deep in his flesh. The flash of pain nothing like what he felt in the past, and he groaned with a released whine of a noise. Dropping the dagger and sliding down to his knees with a lowering of his head in partial visual defeat. Blaise didn't touch him right away, and Draco wondered truly if he was losing his mind. The torture too much, his leadership falling apart from the tasks Voldemort was asking of him. 

"I can't do it,"

"You have too," 

"What if I can't,"

"He will kill us all Draco please stop talking like this,"

"Ok," he said automatically, hovering on an edge of mental breakdown that he hadn't thought possible to feel. He could smell Ron and his chocolate treats in the space, and he felt a jealous flare burst under his chest that he wasn't walking the halls with friends while enjoying such desserts. Where was his childhood? Why was he being tortured in more ways than physical? And killing. God he killed so many people and he was barely seventeen. 

"Don't break Draco," Blaise said pressing a cloak over his hunched shoulders, effectively hiding the marks to his pale skin. Knowing Draco would heal himself. "Harry needs you on this side of the war. On his side." 

"I know, tell the boys to guard the door," Draco whispered rising with a groan of annoyance before sweeping out of the room. Blaise let him walk away, the blonde boy heading right for the Room of Requirement to work on the cabinet. He had to get it done. He was running out of time and not just with Voldemort, but with himself. Draco for the first time since the war started wasn't sure how much more he could take.


	10. Chapter 10

Twilight was his favorite time of day. Watching the colors bleed into the horizon, how the tone of night consuming the sun was vastly different than the counterpoint of dawn. The hues were deeper somehow, blending into the darkness as if a red could truly be any warmer in tone. Draco liked this spot up north near the owlry. No one knew he was there, hiding in the creeping shadows. It was in these moments when he released what bothered him, let himself mentally slip away until he wasn't feeing human anymore. It was here that he became what was necessary in the quiet of the world around Hogwarts. Often he witnessed people's first kiss below, or jealous conversations between rival houses who thought their awful words were falling on deaf ears. Draco found the mundane chatter of his fellow student body created this natural white noise, blowing out his ears differently than what happened in the great hall. Not that he ate there anymore.

He couldn't stand it. The high and low of the place was too much work, a suffocating happiness or the blaming stares towards him that he felt were getting more and more ridiculous. Most of the houses were frightened of him. And rightfully so, he often took it upon himself to bully a few people just to keep up his role, that he was actually someone to fear and the fellow Slytherins who use to want to flank his sides quick leave him alone. Knowing through the best of rumors and whispers that Draco Malfoy could be a Deatheater, which meant he was capable of cold blooded murder. Draco over the months of attempting to reconstruct the cabinet had been training with powerful Deatheaters of his masters clan a few times a night. There was a tunnel he ran from Hogsmead that gave him access back to the manor. Voldemort was aware of the tunnel, but it wasn't offering enough surprise in the attack that the Dark Lord wanted. That and Snape had informed him of Dumbledore knowing of his nightly leavings. To be caught in that tunnel wasn't a smart tactical move hence why he was still working on the cabinet. It would be undetected.

It was all wearing on him but no one saw it entirely. He had them all fooled, everyone, not just in the school but the people around Voldemort. Draco hadn't a clue if the Dark Lord suspected him of treason, but he didn't think on it for fear it would be the key to his thoughts. No, Draco had perfected this-- sadly. He had been giving his own unseen army most of the jobs on his hit list. They had averted a handful of muggle attacks in London over the passing months, and had even captured one of his fellow Deatheaters much to his delight had the pleasure of working the man over before he disposed of him. The fact it was so easy to kill should bother him more, and honestly. It did. It was changing him in ways that Draco assumed was for the better of the war. That didn't mean it was for the better of him.

His smirk was wide while he walked the halls after climbing down from his perch, fingers frozen from the cold that he blew on with a warming spell on his gloves as he slipped them on. The taller male made a dramatic point to shove past Harry when they met outside the main doors leading to Hagrid's. He laughed with his hands lifted upward as if to say 'what?' when the trio turned around to remark. Draco kept his tongue towards Harry only because Hermione was there. Not that he would even admit that to her. She was wearing her hair braided today, and he almost didn't realize it was her when she glared his way. His grin to the insufferable know it all would be one of coy, to the others it was pure malice.

"Granger, trying to keep your hair in a more manageable arrangement? Who would have thought you even had cheekbones under that mane? Might get Ronald here finally interested in you, not that I would suggest it. Heard the oaf has been all over Lavender Brown of all people. Are you going to tell us you have curves under those robes too or is the total package you present to us today just a muggle malfunction of style?"

Oh shit. Hermione's glare that pierced through the blustering wind was hot as fuck. Draco had to remember to keep himself from pressing forward, his need for everything Hermione could give him was a dark, dare he think it, dirty secret he had a feeling she was picking up on. It wasn't often he found himself alone in the rows of showers, but when he was. When the nights of late working became too much he would press his forearm into the tile, and his other would wrap tightly around himself, and he would think steamy thoughts of Hermione Granger slammed up against the wall, picturing the flush burst under her always warm skin as he brought himself to a knee weakening finish.

"Is before me what the privileged looks like? Such shame," was her only remark, and it was delivered so coldly in a harsh whisper that he actually got hot around his collar. How dare her. His pupils dilated, and her smirk to his actual reaction had to be hidden with a turn of her head so Harry and Ron didn't see it while they barked a few mean things his way. Draco hummed in approval though it released as a sarcastic laugh. Overpowering the words coming from others.

"Will grades truly matter when you don't exist in the future planned?" his hiss of words quieted the crowd they had, and Harry marched up to him as a raging bulldog.

"Don't talk like that-- I know what you are. I will prove it," Harry snapped in his direction. Draco felt almost alive right now. The verbal sparring recharging his batteries, giving him fuel to continue on.

"Bring it Potter. You had a choice that day we first met, live up to the fact you chose wrong," His cloak managed to snap when he turned in a way that Snape always seemed to nail when he was frustrated. A more happy grin stretched the hollowness worn on his face into something youthful.

 

\--

He kept thinking about her. It was late, and his eyes were strained from the dim candlelight of the room. Not that his starring at the dead bird had anything productive to contribute too, he just couldn't work on this anymore tonight. He exited the room, Crabbe and Goyle having went to bed already, and paced outside the door to reshape it into a more comfortable space. Often he had decided to use the Room of Requirement for selfish reasons, for whatever reason the magic allowed him too.

"Draco--" The hiss came from Hermione near the back wall, and he stood still, the black clothes of his outfit shadowing all of him less the blonde crown of hair. He didn't see her at all until a shimmer of cloth was removed and she came into view

"You spying on me?" he responded, turning to face her when she moved forward.

"I managed to convince Harry to let me watch under his cloak, he's determined to catch you doing Deatheater business,

Draco snarled, but his glare towards her was softer than intention, "what would he know of that kind of business? He's not seen anything remotely close to horrifying yet next to Siris falling through the damn veil. It's coming though, everything is due to come by the end of the year...

She smelled of honey. The rich tones of parchment reminding him of the crashing of his studies he was allowing to happen. Hermione was quiet, thoughtful in her expression so he walked the door, eyes on her while passing it three times. The third brought his palm to rest along the curve of hers, linking their fingers just enough together that she jumped out of her skin

"What--""  
"Hold my hand Granger,  
"Anyone can see--"  
"Then come in my room--"  
"That is presumptuous of you!

She blushed fiercely and he blushed back unwilling to admit that it was. Draco had been with many different women already, his virtue was so far gone that he wasn't sure it was possible to feel what he was feeling now standing so close to her. Draco had his money Viktor Krum and Hermione had relations but he wouldn't judge her on anything. Now? He latched onto the innocent feeling between them. Moving with a step closer, his face shrouded dramatically in the candlelight.

"Its a training room, more my style though. Not like your DA set up,

She rose her brow in interest, Draco opening the door that appeared and motioned for her to enter. The space was simple, but effective in practicing his type of magic and muggle style fighting. Littered in weapons he favored and targets that magically moved and reshaped to what he needed.  There additionally was  large sink and bath..

"It's dark in here, must you always be in the dark?" Hermione waved her hand and a few sparkling farielights filled the room. Draco laughed. The sound so rare sounding that Hermione actually laughed too.

"I don't mean too Granger, it just happens,"  
"I find your lying is getting worse Draco,"  
"Malfoy--"   
  
"Hmm?" she added innocently, and he crowded her space, unable to resist and was welcomed.   
"It's Malfoy to you,"  
"Oh-- no I much like Draco,"  
"You would. Your insult today had me in a certain mood. Are you here to spy on me or distract me? I pray both--"

Hermione snorted. Shoving him from her space while stepping around the room to better take it in. He wanted to growl, something meaty to prove some level of domination over the witch, but Draco found he always gave Hermione the control. Maybe it was because he was forced to be this awful thing for the war or maybe deep down he was desperate for Hermione to save him from what he decided to live through.

"Harry obviously knows you are in here. I know you won't tell me why, so I assume it is for Voldemort," Draco winced. Hermione saw it with a narrowed gaze

"I told you about the locket, and the cup. The horcruxes Hermione, I think Dumbledore is showing Harry things if what Snape said is correct. I don't know what but I assume it is about that. My army is moving on those items, you won't have to worry about them. Not sure how to help Harry know this without giving away anything...

"Can we not talk war business? I shouldn't have brought it up," she asked with a sadden sigh.

"We are in war Hermione," his throat was dry. Palms sweeting. He never was like this on a mission. The blonde boy able to slit someone's throat without thought or remorse in his motives. Draco could be a monster just like the rest of the Deatheaters, watched more people swallowed by that blasted snake, heard torture of muggles for hours on end over summers. The boy wasn't weak. He wasn't--

"I hate you," her words her mean, practiced and he stepped forward, bringing his lips to hers for the first time unable to really take it anymore. She gasped lightly, Draco deepening it with a groan of satisfaction. The feeling consumed his thoughts. A buzzing awareness that he could finally taste her, feel her against his chest

"Why would you?" she asked with a harsh shove of his shoulders, Draco stepping back with bangs catching his eyes. He brooded a second. Running his tongue along his lips to savor the ghost feeling once more

"I might not see you again," She touched her lips, and Draco's breaths were frantic a few seconds before he leveled out in practiced ways. Moving away and out of her space entirely to place his hands  the sink. The mirror reflected her hurt, and confusion and he knew he shouldn't have assumed she wanted that. But he was more desperate to have that one memory more than anything

"Draco?

"Please leave," he actually growled out. Hermione touched his shoulder, and he titled his head to look at her face. Counting the freckles kissing her nose and the swirling depth of her chestnut eyes.

"What is going to happen?"

"I have to do something-- unthinkable, unforgivable. There isn't delay anymore. Nothing I do to slow it down is working. The Dark Lord will not have it any longer..." Hermione removed his hands grasped tightly on the sink, dampening her own to thread them through his hair. Pressing her palm into his fevered skin above his forehead.

"You are ill," she said as if he hadn't said anything on his mission, and he glared. Pale eyes stormy in instant violence

"Get away from me," left his lips in a snarl, shoving her away in mock to what she had done with a firm hit on her shoulder. She let him push her, gripping the edge of the sink to not fall over and hopped up on the edge to peer his way. A smile teased on her lips, and the brightness was such a rare moment that it penetrated his thick skin. The mask he wore constantly slipping enough that he took a step towards her just to feel something so bright.

"What is so amusing Granger?"

"You are,"

"That is not true,"

"Isn't it though, so brooding and violent when you feel something like this,

She touched his face, the pads of her fingertips running under the sharp lines of his jaw. Mapping up cheekbones, and forcing a flutter of eyelashes from the male, and he actually breathed in sharply not realizing he hadn't experienced such softness to his skin before. Her thumb brushed over his bottom lip making him sweep closer to her

"I have to kill Dumbledore," he whispered pressing closer, forcing her fingertips to turn into a soft brush of her entire palm to his cheek. Draco nuzzled into it, a grim expression folding lines between his brows. "He knows about it, the dying old man is not a fool. I'd never be able too unless I knew he understood...Harry is going to know... he's going to think I just did it."

"Dumbledore is dying?" she whispered sounding horrified.

"I believe so, Snape won't talk on it. He seems determined to carry the burden the Dark Lord wants me to complete. But its on me. I need to get in his favor, I have to end his life so I can be in a better position of power with Him." She tensed. Draco shifted to move between her legs, mouth brushing behind her ear, hands curling tightly into her thighs. She squirmed.

"What are you doing in the Room of Requirement?" she asked him, Draco kissing her skin, sweeping up to capture her lips once more. Hermione pulled him back, eyes blinking expectantly at her question. Draco's eyes faded

"You will find out soon enough, just stay out of the halls when it all happens. Don't play hero Granger," 

""Well you are,"

"That is ridulous, I am not," They bantered like this often, and Draco found over the passing months that Hermione was the only female he connected too on this level. He wrapped his arms around her, holding eye contact as he rested his forehead onto her shoulder. She enveloped him in a hug, squeezing him even as he stared coldly at his haunting reflection in the mirror behind her.


	11. Chapter 11

Peace was the first thing he felt. It was a strange feeling to the boy, a release of blood, the sharp scent of life leaving his body upon the floor of the bathroom. The water soaked his clothes, but he could only stare upward, choking through his breath while Harry Potter's frightened face held inches from his. Maybe in another time he could have thought the boy something special by way of friendship. He remembered hearing the stories as a young child growing up about the boy who lived. Draco secretly had admired him, but he felt he maybe made the wrong choice in this moment. That Harry Potter wasn't who was needed to save the wizarding world. 

"Draco! I'm sorry stay awake! Please!" he heard him, and he smiled a bloody grin, shaking his head lightly. 

"You have no idea what will happen if I die Potter," he coughed, gasping a clear breath enough to feel his head come back to a better focus. Harry wasn't entirely listening, attempting to keep the blood from flowing. But it was dark magic. He could almost smell it now, being around such craft for the last two years. Strong words of Snape filled the bathroom then, and a cooling spell seeped into his skin, meshing the dark magic with the point of his wand and releasing its hold on his body. Draco continued to lay there, staring past Snape who was working swiftly at repairing him. Shouting orders to Harry, and speaking to someone else. Snape kept touching his face. And usually he'd be against it but he couldn't move to shrug it away. How often would he require this? For his friends to patch him up, or his uncle to keep him breathing. Maybe he wasn't meant to survive the war. If only he knew Harry would win then that thought wasn't so terrible.

"Foolish boy," Snape muttered under his breath, and Draco slipped into the darkness easily, unable to stay conscious any longer. Those two words meant for Harry, but Draco let them sink into his head towards him. Thinking he was. And so was Harry. They all were. 

He woke at dinnertime. Aware by the time only because a tray of food was heard being set near the bed. Draco sat up after they left, groaning a second to patched skin before he dropped his feet to the floor. Wand in hand he ran out of the infirmity. Racing with all the speed he had to the dungeons. He burst through the door, his various class mates jumping out of their skin when they saw the state of the normally put together Malfoy. Blaise met his long strides, and followed in suit up the stairs.

"Draco, the mark, your skin, everyone will--"

"Its time," he said slipping out of the hospital gown, his mostly nude body out for a gathering of Pansy and the few others who knew of his plans. The spell Harry had used against him in the bathroom remained as puckered lines over his pale, scupted upper body. He saw them starring, and he allowed if only to keep them aware of the reality to everything. His army were cunning, Blaise wasn't afraid to use force, to kill even if he grumbled about the blood ruining his clothes. Pansy was their secret keeper, holder of notes, and various gossips to obtain the best intel. Crabbe was his muscle, the negotiator and lisason between the younger Slytherins who wanted in on the action but couldn't know more than necessary. And Goyle was the glue. The loyal friend was always there for him, having his things ready without required demand. Goyle used his family ties to provide check points and safe houses to those they saved from the Deatheaters. It didn't appear to be like they were doing enough, but he knew their impact would show. 

"I will not leave the room until it's finished. Pansy, you are on first guard, take the polyjuice potion for one of the first years. Blaise, I need you to seal the tunnel I was using. I won't have them using that as an escape-- if they want this to happen then we will be forcing them, including myself to use the main door. Maybe others will fight and take a few with them."

He slipped a shirt on, stepping into a pair of tight fitted black jeans that he bought in Muggle London a few months before school. They were easier to move in than his required trousers, and he had a feeling the next few days were going to change for the worse in ways no one, even he, was ready for.

"Is Hermione up to speed?" Pansy whispered, and he peered over to Goyle who was packing up various things for Draco just in case he had to run in the coming days. Draco nodded, pulling up a black cloak to rest on his shoulders. "Enough at least, if they come back to seventh year after this is done I would be terribly surprised. I gave her one of the chips, its in that drawer there. Maybe you can communicate for me through it. She won't know of my whereabouts, and I am not sure I will be able to help directly if I am literally next to Him. Help lead them to the horcruxs." 

Pansy went through his drawers, Crabbe handing Draco his wand, and a sack of provisions from Goyle. He thanked his old friend with a firm pat on the shoulder. "No more recon, no more leaving Hogwarts. If I die from all this, you know your roles. Aid Harry in any way you can with those nasty things. They have to be destroyed, Harry will figure out the rest, hes stupid in that way. Just focus on the ones we know, let the trio do their Gryffindor thing."

"Don't say you are going to die," Blaise said seriously, and Draco offered him a cheeky, sarcastic grin.

"Death will happen to all of us eventually. So long as the right side of war wins Blaise-- I can go into this with a clear mind," 

The cabinet killed another bird. It was the third one and he held the once living thing with a rare show of care as he set it upon the desk. He sneered at the troll statue that kept glaring down on him while he worked, his mood dark and stormy since he walked into the space. Two days had passed, and he worried for a moment that people would notice his absence. Heard Harry outside the door a few times, his voice easy to pick up even in a frantic whisper. Draco knew the very second he got the cabinet to work it was happening. 

He pressed his wand into various spots on the cabinet, whispering enchantments from literature that he discovered were written by the maker. Draco understood the idea that was this object, how it would work once he completed it, he just wasn't sure if he was powerful enough to make it happen. Hours passed, repairing the nails with exact duplicated ones, his eyes hallowing and skin pulling tight against his bones. He was hungry, snacking lightly just to keep himself from passing out. But the three days of staying up were catching up to him, his eyes bloodshot now to the point the strain was having his magic do random things in the room. 

He laid down on the floor. More passed out completely, the chirping sound of the last bird happily singing a tune for him. Draco slept. Dreaming about kissing Hermione, the pair of them wrapped up in a large wool blanket and snuggling for hours while they debated about Troll wars and various nerdy topics. Hermione didn't even know he could draw. Did she too have skills? Did she dance? Could she sing? What was her favorite food or color or anything really? Draco stirred awake after a few hours, the bird hopping around the cage. He wiped his mouth, rising with a stretch to point his wand right at the cabinet. His clothes reeked of sweat, and various odors from not showering, but this was it. He knew it was. Felt it birth under his skin.

Love was the most power of magic.

He spoke the spell again, the blue magic bursting powerfully from his wand to blow him back against the floor. The cabinet shook, a rumbling sound of excavation echoing in the hallowed space and then it all stilled. Draco pushed up from the floor. Grabbing the little yellow canary and set him inside. He closed it with a click, pressing his forehead to the cabinet and whispered the spell. Draco listened, waited. Seconds turned into minutes and despair threatened to eat at him. Knowing this was it. There was no more time. A chirp responded. And he opened the creaking door to see the bird and a note attached saying, 

_Tonight._


End file.
